The Prince of Persia Remake Is In Even Bigger Trouble
The Prince of Persia remake has steadily been getting worse news every time an update has been provided, and now the game seems to be in even more trouble.
The fans of the last decade’s Prince of Persia gaming franchise rejoiced in 2020 when Ubisoft announced the remake of the best game in the series, The Sand of Time, originally released in 2003. The remake of the time-shifting action-adventure game that changed the entire genre and ultimately led to the creation of Assassin’s Creed was originally due out in January 2021, but it has suffered several delays since. Now, the game has been postponed indefinitely.
According to Kotaku, several reports have surfaced in the last couple of days about the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake being removed from retailers, which led fans to believe that Ubisoft low-key canceled the game. Well, the good news is that the game isn’t officially canceled, but the bad news is that it’s being delisted from retailers and made unavailable for pre-order. Then again, Ubisoft doesn’t have to cancel the game officially — it just has to stop talking about it.
A similar thing happened with the long-awaited Beyond Good & Evil 2, a prequel to a cult-classic video game from 2003. Ubisoft announced the game in 2016 and showcased it in 2017 but hasn’t offered any news about the project ever since. The game’s director, Michel Ancel, departed Ubisoft following the sexual misconduct allegations, and Ubisoft hasn’t provided any official news about the project to the fandom — only to investors in financial reports. Well, it appears that the same thing is happening with the Prince of Persia remake right now.
Admittedly, the Prince of Persia remake wasn’t in great shape, to begin with. Following the game’s announcement, the fandom, though glad that the game is finally being remade, criticized Ubisoft for the game’s lackluster graphics, calling it yet another money grab playing on the fandom’s love for the franchise. In response, Ubisoft delayed the game to March 2021 before caving to the fandom’s pressure and postponed the game indefinitely to update the graphics.
The company later revealed that the game would likely release in 2023 but hasn’t offered any precise release window or date, signaling a troubling development behind the closed curtains. This turned out to be true, considering that the Prince of Persia remake changed hands twice between Ubisoft’s smaller Indian-based studios before landing at Ubisoft Montreal, the same studio that was in charge of developing the original game.
Ubisoft Montreal did specify, as per our previous report, that they’ll take a month’s time to assess the work done so far and the amount of work still necessary to deliver a game that’s worthy of being called a Prince of Persia remake. That month has passed, and it would seem that things weren’t as great as the company believed since it delisted the game from retailers, eliminated pre-orders, and even allowed gamers to cancel their pre-orders.
Unfortunately, this isn’t good news for the Prince of Persia franchise, and given Ubisoft’s history of negligence towards their once-great titles, this could spell our “delayed” but starting with a “C” and ending with “anceled.” We’ll keep you updated on the project as it develops — if it ever moves from the pit of development hell it has fallen into.
