Many Prince of Persia fans were disappointed when Ubisoft CEO Yannis Mallat announced in 2013 that the Prince of Persia series was paused for the time being, and that “it needed time to breath”. And it is clear that the French company is now focusing on their flagship series, Assassin’s Creed, as well as the increasingly popular Far Cry action games, with a new entry for the latter series hitting the shelves next year.
So many gamers are wondering, will we ever see another Prince of Persia game? We last saw the Prince in the 2010 video game Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, which was a decent entry in the series, but failed to capture the magic of the earlier The Sands of Time game. That year also saw the release of Walt Disney’s Prince of Persia movie, a good film that nonetheless failed to break the video game movie curse and ended up being considered a failure by many, including Disney itself.
And Ubisoft has not released a Prince of Persia game since then, and perhaps many gamers would argue that there’s no need for one anymore. After all, both the Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia series of games are very similar, with the same focus on parkour, platforming, searching for treasures and engaging in swordfights with enemies. And Assassin’s Creed has certainly been a golden goose for Ubisoft, selling millions of copies worldwide since the first game hit the shelves in 2007.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of the best games in the series to date.
Also, it is worth noting that the first Assassin’s Creed game was actually going to be known as Prince of Persia: Assassin according to Kotaku, with the player character being one of the Prince’s bodyguards, but Ubisoft ditched the idea because they did not want a Prince of Persia game that did not star the Prince. So they came up with Assassin’s Creed instead, which is arguably a better series given its detailed historical settings, Dan Brown-style conspiracy theories and the legendary struggle between the Templars and Assassins.
It can be argued then, that it’s not that the Prince of Persia series disappeared, it’s just that it evolved and became Assassin’s Creed. And given how successful Assassin’s Creed has been, and that other Ubisoft series like Far Cry are also thriving, it seems unlikely that we’ll seen another Prince of Persia game soon. But who knows, perhaps Ubisoft finds a way to make the Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed series coexist, and gamers will get another chance to enjoy more oriental platforming action and swashbuckling as the eponymous Prince in the future…