Prince of Persia returns in a brisk and engrossing Metroidvania

polygon.com:

Prince of Persia games were once a big enough deal that they made them into a movie, controversially starring Jake Gyllenhaal. In fact, prior to the arrival of Assassin’s Creed in 2007, Prince of Persia was probably Ubisoft’s premier franchise, due in large part to the reputation of 2003 classic The Sands of Time. But the series has fallen on hard times. There hasn’t been a significant Prince of Persia release in the 13 long years since 2010’s The Forgotten Sands, while a planned remake of The Sands of Time has gone back to the drawing board.

In this context comes Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, a low-budget, low-stakes, sort of soft reboot for the franchise. It’s a tribute to the series’ side-scrolling roots in Jordan Mechner’s 1989 original, and can be read as a gentle reminder to the world at large that these games exist. Perhaps it’s also a toe in the water from Ubisoft to gauge the real-world popularity of a series it has been struggling to keep relevant, as well as a relatively safe space in which to figure out how a series rooted in both traditional Middle Eastern folklore and a certain strain of colonialist adventure fiction can work in the 2020s, representationally speaking.

The Lost Crown, developed by Ubisoft’s Montpellier studio in the south of France — the home of Rayman —is due out on Jan. 18, 2024, for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. I had a chance to play it for a few hours via a remote preview event, and found it to be a brisk, entertaining Metroidvania-style game with crisp combat and engrossing level design… and it’s a game that doesn’t star the Prince of Persia at all.

This might be the most puzzling choice Ubisoft Montpellier has made. The