Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a remake project announced well over two years ago, is back at the “conception” stage, after development was moved from Ubisoft Pune to Ubisoft Montreal. Effectively, the studio is starting from scratch, and as such there’ll be no updates at the French publisher’s upcoming Ubisoft Forward event next month – or even later this year.
“We're building up the team, defining the priorities, putting prototypes together, testing elements, and looking at how we can include community feedback in the development as well,” producer Jean-Francois Naud explained. “It’s still in an early stage, and players should not expect to hear more about the game this year, but rest assured that we’re all putting our strengths and heart into this project.”
Game director Michael McIntyre – not that one! – goes on to explain that remaking the release is important, as the original is now 20 years old. “It’s been 20 years since the original game was released, and not only has technology advanced but I think we, as players and game-makers, have evolved since that time, too,” he observed.
The interview, which you can read in full, goes on to explain Ubisoft Montreal’s aims and ambitions for the project – but it’s clear the team is unwilling to commit to much, as it’s still in its early phases of development. The main takeaway is that the studio clearly wants to blend the old with the new – it wants to focus on platforming and puzzles like the original, but evolve the way the Prince moves and animates.
This is a long, long way off. Despite originally being announced for the PS4, we imagine this will ultimately launch on the PS5, and it’s likely the last-gen version will be scrapped. Don’t expect to be playing this until late 2024, or even potentially 2025 – it’s that far away!
[source news.ubisoft.com]
Comments 39
What games have Ubisoft actually released recently? It's been a while since a new Assassin's Creed, Skull and Bones keeps getting delayed and now this is getting rebooted. I can't think of anything outside Mario and Rabbids on Switch and Just Dance 2023
Sounds like this is for the best... what they showed so far really didn't visually look promising.
Shoutout to Ubisoft cutting out the middle man and jumping straight to remaking the remake.
I’d settle for a nice quick and dirty 4k port. It’s a timeless (!) classic.
The fact this had a proper release date of Jan 2021 complete with an option to pre-order with bonuses included is incredible.
Honestly just do a Mass Effect style remaster of the entire trilogy and call it a day so they can focus on and make a new entry.
Do you think someone in the studio shouted “no that didn’t happen!” and they all returned to a early prototype time?
@Papa_Emeritus
If the teaser and the couple of screenshots are something to go by, it won't be a "dirty 4K port". It is a classic indeed! But one that deserves a proper remake. I hope that this delay means that EA is taking this legacy IP seriously.
It looked absolutely atrocious graphics wise..so good
Sounds very much like what happened with Metroid prime 4. We won’t hear anything about this project for years.
This isn’t even the first time a remake has had to be remade this year.
They should make just remaster, not remake. Any additions to classic in most cases doesn't work.
Pretty much everything I've heard about this game has been in relation to development hell (something that seems to be a worrying trend with Ubisoft games lately) so this is probably for the best. It gives me time to potentially experience the series this is hailing from beforehand so I'm not gonna complain too much myself.
@Sam_ATLUS Far Cry's been plodding along relatively consistently for the past few years in addition to what you've mentioned. In terms of other series though? Yeah, not too much there 😬
What is happening with Ubisoft these days. They have at least three titles in development hell with one holding the current record. What a mess.
@Yukairi that Beyond Good & Evil 2 announcement was too hype to be real ffs
I'd honestly prefer a reboot over a remake. I don't even have a problem with remakes but I feel like Sands of Time warrants one less than other games.
While it's obviously disappointing I'm glad they are taking it seriously. Sands of Time deserves respect. Fantastic game.
Looking forward to playing this in year 2030
This is where we are in gaming. Not only is it so bereft of ideas we're down to endlessly remaking the same games from 20 years ago, but now we can't even successfully remake existing games and need to reboot/remake remakes before remaking them. It now takes 15 years to release a single product. 7 years to design and build the product, then decide it's terrible, scrap it, and star the process again + 1 year for delay.
No wonder games are $70. You're paying for all the products that never launched.
Why not, just, oh, IDK....make new games? Instead of spending a decade trying to figure out how not to remake a game you already made?
Wish they would remake the 2008 PoP game (or remaster it at least). That game was so good.
How can a remake go back to 'concept' stage?
Surely all that was done the first time around?
@WallyWest assassins creed mirage £140 collectors edition has been available for pre order for ages now and we haven’t even seen the game yet.
The sands of time are truly mysterious.
Warrior Within was the best in the trilogy for me why not remake all three games.
@ItsBritneyB_tch You have good taste. Loved that game. The art style is timeless, so all it needs is increased resolution and 60fps+.
I remember I bought this game on Xbox not because I was interested in the game itself, but because I heard you could unlock and play PoP 1 and PoP 2 which were phenomenal games that I wanted to be able to play again on my Xbox. I was VERY surprised at how much I ended up loving Sands of Time.
I feel bad for the original team, but its clear they weren't up to the task as it truly did look horrible for a remake of a 20 year old game. More so when you have games like the multiple Resident Evil and recent Dead Space remakes to go up against in terms of expected quality.
If it’s back to the drawing board, let’s add some fun characters to the mix. Why stop at the Prince of Persia? How about the…
—Bard of Babylon
—Temptress of Tunisia
—Infiltrator of Iran
—Salacious Seductress of Syria
—Joker of Jordan
—Baron of Bahrain
—Bombardier of Bhutan
—Sultan of Sudan
—Assassin of Azerbaijan
—The Masked Marauder of Mauritania
…and make the setting be the Utiopia of Ethiopia
@Ghost82G
Warrior Within was actually my least favorite. I love them all, but I did not enjoy the tonal change of WW or all the Dahaka chases. The character was really cool, but it was also annoying.
@Papa_Emeritus
I recently tried it out on Steam Deck, I will always love the game as the trilogy is one of my favorites in all my years of gaming, but it needs more than just a visual update.
Biggest reason why this is a shame is because what I trully want is a Warrior Within Remake
@NEStalgia
It seems to be too hard to make new games, no major publisher wants to take risks. Of course it doesn't help consumers are notoriously picky, demanding, and spiteful.
Heaven forbid any new game doesn't have the most realistic cutting age graphics, because the mass consumers won't bother without it. That's one of the major issues with the industry. Consumers expect constant visual improvements to the detriment of actually being able to make better design and gameplay improvements due to so much of a consoles power going to rendering the top end graphics.
Another is most consumers seemingly don't want to try new IP's. They don't want to spend money on something they're unsure of so in turn the publishers are the same.
I'm in no way defending publishers, but its a joint problem. I miss the days of getting a lot of AA quality games that if succesful enough can be turned into AAA sequels or franchises. It seems I'm in the minority of that mindset though.
I would argue the original Uncharted was a higher end AA game before it turned into the massive franchise that it did. I love it to death, but outside of visuals and story, the gameplay was as basic as it could be.
The Original XBox version plays & looks ridiculously good on Series X - hard to believe it is a 20 year old game at times
Not surprising, we probably won't be seeing the remake until 2025-2026 at this rate.
@Sam_ATLUS In terms of big AAA releases, nothing since the Mario & Rabbids game.
However we did get a confirmed October 12th date for AC Mirage at today's PlayStation Showcase.
We also still have these Ubisoft games slated for a vague 2023 release window...
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Skull and Bones
Tom Clancy's The Division Resurgence
@Vriess it’s Ubisoft not EA
@Kang81
Everything you just mentioned is correct plus in general games especially of the AAA ilk are so much more difficult and expensive to develop these days. The more technical the games get the more things can vastly go wrong in the code, including a lot of things not even the developers could have anticipated. Back in the 90s a group of just 20 developers making a hyped up epic was the norm (nowadays most AAA developers are at least pushing 1000) and code was so much easier to vet for issues because the scale of games back in the day was much more contained (don't believe me look up games from your childhood and aside from RPGs they will all be much shorter than you remember) as a result games were so much easier and cheaper. Not to mention now you got entitled idiots online expecting literally every single game regardless of size or budget to be some sort of industry pusher and it makes me feel bad to be a developer in this day in age. My point is there is no single answer to the inconsistent state of things and the typical twitter assessment of "hurr durr game developers lazy hurr durr" is stupid as there is so much more to it than that.
This game is such a embarrassment for Ubisoft I swear. Or it would be if they had any sort of pride. I mean seriously to be back at the concept stage when you had a release date and pre order bonuses lined up? Was that just a vaporware release date they realized they couldn’t meet? Or good god was this game originally gonna come out then and be like that new Gollum game where it’s a 2/10? Seriously disappointing and I’m not even a Prince of Persia fan this would be my first.
@xDD90x @ItsBritneyB_tch
The existing PC version of Prince of Persia 2008 still looks great (just replayed it last year), and it only costs $2 on GOG!
Sands of Time, Warrior Within, and Two Thrones are there as well, at the same price.
Though I have to admit that it would be nice if PoP 08 had the option for better shadow quality, as it appears to be locked to the original Xbox 360's standards. Just a minor gripe.
@smoreon Yes, I have all the POP games on PC, but I never got around to playing them there; I'm sure they run great. The only thing about 2008 is it never received the epilogue dlc on PC, but I can always play that on PS3 if I really want to.
@PegasusActual93
Yeah, gamers just set unrealistic expectations for publishers and developers to the detriment of the industry. Not everything has to be top quality AAA visuals, at least for me.
Now I want better than what was shown of the original PoP remake footage, and.certainly better than the recently released travesty that is Gollum. Ugh
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