Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Review: A Bold New Path for the Prince

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In the past few years, Metroidvanias and action-adventure platformers have seen a resurgence. Ori and the Blind Forest, Hollow Knight and Dead Cells have breathed new life into the genre, bringing fresh ideas to its established ethos. There's also a renewed appetite for challenging games. Dark Souls came around in 2011 and redefined what one could take away from a video game. They can be fun, sure. But they can be punishing, too. Fast forward a decade, and we now have people playing Elden Ring with a steering wheel. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Ubisoft's latest Metroidvania action-adventure platformer, assimilates elements from these games and subgenres to tread familiar ground, but it does so in its own unique ways.

Save points from Dark souls, air dashes and double jumps from Hollow Knight and intricate and interconnected Biome-based level design from Dead Cells; The Lost Crown's DNA splices together strands from games that have come before. There's a bit of Celeste in there and some of Hades, too. But the final result is a game that is also distinctly Prince of Persia. From its Persian setting and its experiments with the passage of time to its high-wire platforming puzzles and its throwback dual swords, The Lost Crown is very much a Frankenstein monster unto itself, even if its body parts are not its own.

It is also ridiculously fun and surprisingly challenging. What The Lost Crown lacks in narrative depth and contextualisation, it makes up for in the pure dynamism of its action combat and the sheer variety of its platforming and traversal systems. It is also not a lean package by any means. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown cannot be breezed through in a dozen or so hours, especially on its harder difficulty settings. Just the main missions — there are nine of them — could take about 18-20 hours. And if you go for a healthy amount of side quests, optional boss fights and platforming challenges, and treasures and trinkets, the game can easily go double the