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Outside of that development space, Ubisoft has a history of alleged rampant sexual abuse by employees in positions of power. An ongoing issue that came to light in 2020, with five former employees being arrested in late 2023. Because of these allegations, I have stayed away from Ubisoft games outside of work, and this led me to Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown.
I was a huge fan of Prince Of Persia growing up. Sands Of Time blew my mind, Warriors Within landed during my angsty teen years and Two Thrones swung on by just in time for my late-teen redemption arc. Heck, I even played that god-awful DS strategy game, and I loved it. I even had time for the reboots and spinoffs in comparatively more recent times, although it never quite hit the same way. Nostalgia has a way of doing that to a person.
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Bringing Back The Dead
The series as a whole has been dead for a while now, and I was fine with that. A lot of people were fine with that. We had a good run, the story came to an end, and the reboots just weren’t the same. I was happy to let the series, somewhat ironically, get forgotten in the duney sands of time. But then it came back.
A remake of Sands Of Time was announced and then promptly got stuck in development hell. But more importantly – at least in the context of this article – Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown became a thing. A demo recently landed on all major platforms and the game is set to release on January, 15. I am just going to say it, this game is starting 2024 off with a bang if the demo is anything to go by,
Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown is a Metroidvania, although it takes far more from the ‘Metroid’ half of that ludicrous genre. More specifically, it takes a whole bunch of inspiration from Metroid: Dread and Metroid: Samus Returns. Of course, going back to 2D harkens all the way back to the original Prince Of Persia games from 1989. Lost Crown is slicker than a greasy CEO, and even manages to innovate in a genre that is otherwise fairly by the numbers.
You play as a member of The Immortals and you are tasked with finding the Prince. You and your team split up, time gets all weird, and the dead rise again. A simple setup that gets straight to the point. Speaking of simple, the game also has a very stylised art style that is pleasing to the eye and absolutely beautiful in motion. Movements are fluid and satisfying to execute, and are part of the reason the game feels so good to play – you look fancy.
Gameplay Innovations & Inspirations
Snazzy animations aside, the game also plays great. Controls are intuitive, combat has a lot of punch and keeps the Prince nimble. Combos are natural and as you mix sliding, analogue inputs, and button presses, you will perform all kinds of flashy ground and aerial manoeuvres. Melee combat is the name of the game, and engaging in it is simple and satisfying.
It even throws in mechanics like perfect parrying, unblockables, and limited healing that only gets restored at a bonfire analogue. Exploration from the get-go is just as good with each major area in the demo having distinctive landmarks and plenty of paths to navigate and secrets to uncover. The demo is fairly short if you blitz it from start to finish, but there’s a lot to do if you take your time.
What really blew my mind is the way the map works. Maps are simple things and have existed within the genre for literal decades. What makes the map in Lost Crown so darn good is how much information it shows, and how you interact with it. At any point you can hold ‘down’ on the directional pad and boom, a screenshot pinned to your map. This effortlessly lets you track collectables you can’t reach – yet.
All Good – Apart From The Bad
As far as innovations go, this is up there as one of Ubisoft’s greatest. As I age my memory starts to lose track of things like a random collectibles. I have other things to remember so superfluous things like that exit my brain as quickly as they entered it. This system is implemented perfectly and makes backtracking a total breeze.
I played the Lost Crown demo on Switch to get the ‘worst’ experience possible from a technical perspective. Let me tell you, the Switch version is very impressive. It looks great, it runs at a solid 60FPS, and in handheld mode, it’s a total dream. I played on an OLED and I will likely be playing the entire game on it next week.
In my short time playing Lost Crown there was only one issue I had, and that was a forced signup to Ubisoft’s nonsense service – even on consoles. I hate this kind of thing. There’s no reason for it to be here, but sadly, even the best of Ubisoft’s games cannot escape Ubisoft’s all-encompassing need to make everything slightly worse. A minor issue, but one that stuck out.
Overall, my first impressions of Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown are overwhelmingly positive. If the final product continues in this manner, then we have our first home run of 2024, and we are not halfway through January. It releases January, 15, on Nintendo Switch. PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
That’s all we have on Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown for now. Be sure to check out our upcoming content on the game.
