The next game in Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia series has been officially announced, and you may be surprised to see the studio behind it. The Rogue Prince of Persia will be developed by Dead Cells studio Evil Empire and will launch in Early Access on May 14 of this year. That makes it the second game in the series to be released in 2024, with The Lost Crown launching in January. The game brings a stylish new art direction and gameplay to the franchise, one of the many benefits of giving a non-Ubisoft studio a chance to make with the IP.
The upcoming game was announced at the end of the April 10 Triple-i Initiative Showcase, an event that would focus on upcoming indie projects. What “Triple-i” really means, I’m still not sure. It’s clearly a play on AAA, which is how the industry refers to big-budget games made by large teams at major studios. Interestingly, however, this indie showcase ended with a game published by the very large company Ubisoft—though it’s being developed by a much smaller studio, Evil Empire. Interesting. Anyway, The Rogue Prince of Persia was revealed in a dazzling trailer that began as a beautifully animated scene that transitioned into showing off its (still beautiful) gameplay. It will be a 2D platformer in the vein of classic Prince of Persia, but have metroidvania and roguelite elements that should be familiar to those who have played Dead Cells.
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This all makes sense considering Evil Empire is an offshoot of Dead Cells developer Motion Twin, and responsible for the game’s Return to Castlevania and Queen of the Sea expansions. IGN had some hands-on time with the new PoPgame, and highlighted the similarities between it and Dead Cells, in a good way. Though IGN’s preview does notesome differences, including a more acrobatic feeling to movement. “There’s no question that Dead Cells walked so that The Rogue Prince of Persia could wall-run” wrote IGN’s Tristan Ogilvie.
Rumors of The Rogue Prince of Persia existence started swirling on April 3rd, after Insider Gaming first reported on its existence and claimed it would be coming later this year. While the official announcement didn’t reveal a release date, the game will be entering Early Access next month on Steam. There was no mention of console versions of the game, though it’s likely those will come once it’s moved beyond Early Access and ready for version 1.0. How long that will take, however, we can’t say.