Ubisoft Disbands Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Team After Poor Sales, Claims Report

If this is true, this is the second time this decade that Ubisoft has either declined or canceled a sequel to one of the rare games I like from them. Immortals and Lost Crown deserved so much more than this.

I like to think that this is all for the greater good. May Ubisoft rebuild in a few years with a focus on fewer, but better releases.

People want AAA POP. Not this indie filler. There are indie studios that produce much better games in those genres.

@RBMango ehhh. Just go play Tears of the Kingdom and Metroid Dread.

My worst fears are realized. This team also made Rayman Legends — they are exceptional designers! But despite making this excellent smaller-scope Metroidvania, they're thrown out the window. Very disappointed, very sad, I wish the team the best of luck finding work if they were indeed laid off or reassigned.

Ubi disbands the team that made their most playable game in a decade. That tracks.

Wow it gets harsher and harsher in the gaming business. I mean it is not like they made a bad game it was very good.

Ironically the one release from ubi I have bought in the last couple of years. Go figure. Awful news. Another talented team reassigned to work on cookie cutter titles. Will be no creativity left before long across the AAA gaming space. Not good

@RBMango only 2 games by Ubi I own..

I wonder if it made any profit?

I hate the idea that a game that made a bit of money but didn't make enough is just done and so is the team.

Not every game can be a massive AAA blockbuster there needs to be the pallet cleansing smaller games in between otherwise the fatigue gets too real.

I hope someone picks the team up to make a game in another franchise, or a new IP in a similar style.

@RBMango I'm exactly the same. Struggled to enjoy Far Cry and most of the Assassin's Creed series then we get some really interesting stuff (I'd also include Mario + rabbids in there) and none of it gets much of life.

Everyone got too used to Ubi’s sales huh? Honestly since they do these huge sales soon after a game is released that I’ve only heard about, I don’t game much, it but them in the ass. Also, it’s like what, every other day now that Ubisoft is in the news? Now if there IS truth to this rumor, then yeah, how much longer before they start closing up more of their divisions until none remain?

I’m not trying to be all doom and gloom or a naysayer on all these Ubisoft articles. But it’s honestly just starting to look like their days truly are numbered. Especially when nearly every single article is negative about what is happening inside the company. Strikes, buyouts, financials, it’s not looking good.

@Medic_alert I think locking a relatively niche game on the PC market behind their Ubisoft launcher had something to do with it. If it was available on Steam on day one, I think it would have seen more day-one sales.

Another problem stated countless times is that many people know Ubisoft games go on sale quickly. Many of Lost Crown's potential customers possibly went "that looks fun, but I'll wait for a discount". They either got it later at a cheaper price or forgot about it entirely because the first quarter of this year was flushed with good games that overshadowed it.

It's Ubisoft. This is what they do.

It pains me to say that I'm part of the problem. Despite loving metroidvanias and having every intention of playing this, I still haven't bought it. There are just so many games and this had a fairly hefty pricetag for this type of game.

It might not have made much of a difference, but still, I wish I had bought it now. Based on my impressions of the demo and the game's reception, the team deserves better than this.

They should rather disband Assassins Creed team...

Well, regardless of Ubisoft’s direction, I’m thankful to Montpellier for crafting such a great Prince of Persia. One of the best games I played this year.

@RBMango Yeah I think that is true. Unfortunately last gen has cultivated this idea that in 2-3 months and sometimes less you can get a steep discount on the game and in times when money is tight that is an easy win for the consumer.

However I think the constant sales, the deep discounts and the general perception that some companies just release broken buggy games is really hurting sales now and ultimately this is not good for anyone, gamers included.

pretty much the only Ubi game I bought, played and liked in over 10 years lol....

I should buy some Ubi stocks, they will soon be taken over I'm sure of it.

I also would have bought the game a second time on Steam if it weren't for the Ubi launcher. On PS5 it could be played without a launcher, so that's where I bought it.

@Gewertzx
No really, Ubi needs to be disbanded or sold. Then hopefully someone with skills will end up with their IPs.

@Medic_alert Even Lost Crown didn't release bug-free. It had a big bug at launch that could lock people out of finishing one of the few side quests in the game. It was eventually patched, but people whose save files were affected had to start a new file to avoid the bug. Bugs aren't exclusively a Ubisoft problem, but they have a reputation for them and a general lack of polish at launch that far exceeds many other publishers.

Tbh for me I have very little interest in platform games , played the demo , reminded of og pop games from the late 80's /early 90's. Price was a bit too high for a 15-20 hour game imo

Awful news. People need to back good games with good sales.

It sucks, but If it didn't sell it needs to go. Ubisoft are in a difficult position at the moment. They need to cut the fat and focus on their big sellers. It's the reality of business.

@RBMango I think that's a business decision rather than on the devs. Games from Ubisoft usually release on time and this is regardless of quality.

I think the money people just push the game out knowing it can be patched later.

I remember when Lost Crown was first revealed and people weren't exactly happy with the choices. But it turned out to be a good game overall. Shame Ubisoft decided to disband the team

@get2sammyb @AdamNovice it's that echo chamber thing again though isn't it?

We sit here engaging only with others who are enthusiasts of the medium and we want to see the smaller games, the ones with that niche audience, the games that rarely sell in massive numbers.

But we make up probably less than 5% of the market, arguably less than 1% and what we want from a business stand point no longer makes sense which is why I understand the Sony move to live service because just one success is worth so much more than multiple single player one and done experiences.

I don't have to like it though.

People beg Ubisoft over and over to do a different, smaller, not open world or live service game. They finally do it and no one buys it. Then people go on to say how dare Ubisoft disband the team that made it.

Make it make sense.

It was a great Metroidvania, with good gameplay, nice visuals and an interesting story. The Prince of Persia franchise is a bit all over the place nowadays, but this entry was creatively inspired and you could tell it was made by talented people.
I think it suffered a lot from a rocky launch, with glitches and freezes plaguing the game on 1.00. But even through this period, devs were surprisingly communicative through their Discord channel. I had a trophy problem at some point and had the pleasure of getting an answer almost immediately from their team, which is pretty rare in the industry.
Hopefully devs will find a new project to show their talent, they deserve it. Shame on you, Ubisoft.

@Medic_alert Oh for sure. I'm not implying the devs at Ubisoft Montpellier are responsible for shipping the game with those issues. They made a cool-ass game even with its problems that a few months in the oven could have fixed. But that's the saddest part, isn't it? The game underwhelms financially and the talented people are the ones that receive the lion's share of the consequences.

Honestly this was a great game. The protagonist's stupid modern hip-hop design and art style was the worst part. But the story, writing and gameplay was superb. I really enjoyed it.

Horrible news… the current gaming market is just a conundrum. I’m yet to play this myself but have listened to many people who just couldn’t stop gushing about this game.

@RBMango Indeed, the devs are always the fall guys. The business guys need to be more accountable.

@Medic_alert @get2sammyb @AdamNovice

It's a fascinating multi-faceted situation, especially in cases like PlayStation, which I could passionately discuss for hours. But I think the biggest problem all of these publishers share (aside from Nintendo) is that they have trained their mainstream and casual audiences for multiple generations that the most worthwhile games are the ones that focus on scale and/or graphical fidelity. We see this all the time now. A lot of casual gamers have a hyper-fixation of game length, graphical detail, and sheer volume of content, and these smaller games rarely serve any of those desires.

As good as Lost Crown is, I can't blame a lot of casual audiences for dismissing it for any number of reasons, especially since Prince of Persia hasn't been a big thing for ages now. In Lost Crown's case specifically, I'm curious what their financial expectations were when they released this a week before the start of the constant and popular game releases earlier this year and it was missing from Steam. It's no surprise it financially underperformed under those self-sabotaging circumstances.

@get2sammyb Feels very similar to what happened with Hi-Fi Rush. Smaller game, lower price point, universal acclaim, team closed down.

Big AAA games are becoming unsustainable, double A games are becoming more rare and we're seeing critically acclaimed smaller titles fail as well. Do we need a smaller industry, releasing fewer games? No idea what the answer is here.

@Gewertzx This is game is legitimately fantastic and of scope and quality that an indie team wouldn't feasibly be able to achieve. Pretending it's a lesser game due to being a 2d side scrolled is borderline childish.

Ubisoft is done for, the one legitimately great game they come out within a decade and not even a year later they disband the team. Just pathetic.

@Bigmanfan Not as childish as defending this failure of a game.

This is why we don't deserve nice things. This is one of the best games of the year, and it couldn't find an audience despite great reviews and decent marketing. Maybe all of the companies shoukd just release new sequels in their biggest franchises, and when people bring up "Where are all the new ideas, just have the company figurehead say. "You don't like new ideas" and leave it at that

This isn't vaguely surprising to me, that it wasn't a commercial hit and that Ubisoft is disbanding the team. PoP is kind of a niche franchise to begin with, so I can't imagine this game ever being a big hit. I'm always curious what the numbers actually are - sales and their internal target.

For what it's worth I didn't buy this game - I actually checked it out from my library and beat it in 2 weeks. But I will say I absolutely loved it, and may buy a copy to stick on my shelf at some point.

I highly recommend it to anyway curious about it.

@Gewertzx there are no better games in the genre from indie developers. This is probably the best non Metroid or Castlevania Metroidvania, with the possible exception of Hollowknight

@Batesy125s Then Ubisoft shouldn't have invested so much money in this indie project

This was a great game. Very sad indeed.

@Gewertzx maybe so, but then what's to say a AAA PoP would make the money back, when it would cost much more to make and therefore would require much more sales. Ubisoft may as well stick to making Assassin's creed, and updates to R6 Siege, as they would earn more money from that than any other gane they coukd possibly make

Good Metroidvania but Maybe make a Prince of Persia game next time?

I disagree with this notion that "deep sales hurt the industry." Gamers are going to have a budget for their games at some point. They might be a gamer that picks up 5 games on $20 sales totaling $100, or they might be a gamer that buys one gold Ubisoft game at $100 preorder, or they might be a gamer that subscribes to months of Game Pass or Premium for $100. But generally they're not going to move far beyond that budget. Convincing gamers to spend $70, $80, $100 at launch isn't going to significantly change the total industry spend by most consumers outside FOMO most-have-zeitgeist online games, all the pricing does is change what company gets what shares of the money, not the total industry revenue per user. The high price means the player's whole budget went into that one game from that one publisher. That was a goal that one of the Assassin's Creed producers said was the goal a generation ago about the future of AAA - capturing all of the user's spend on fewer bigger titles. But that mentality, not low pricing, is what hurt the industry. With every game overspending it's budget by attempting to be the ONE game people blow their gaming budget on they created a system where you either win big or you lose it all. Running the deep sales often isn't necessarily detrimental, if they can't be king of the hill as the next CoD or GTA getting ALL the revenue, they can generate more sales at lower margin and still scoop up a ton of revenue by tempting players to buy a game at a price they wouldn't have bought instead of another game at full price.

As an "I'll wait for deep sales only" gamer, I don't spend any less on games than if I only bought a few ultra premium priced games at launch. I simply buy tons more games every time I see sales and add them to the pile. I likely spend MORE than I would if I budgeted behind one high cost title. Much more. I just try more different things.

Speaking of Lost Crown, just bought it a few weeks ago for a low-low price. Bought it directly from UbisoftConnect store on their own sale - so they had to split no money with a storefront. I wouldn't have bought it at a higher price. And while I was there, Avatar was also a low price, so I bought it too. Never intended to buy it. And AC Mirage was on sale so I bought that too - was waiting for a good sale on that. So I walked away from the Ubisoft Connect store having spent $80 in their direct store. If I bought Lost crown at launch I'd have spent $70 or less and 30% would have gone to another store. Sales and low prices don't "hurt" industries. Walmart not only succeeded, but decimated nearly all other retail in the US, simply by selling at lower margin, thus multiplying volume. The model is tested and proven.

@Gewertzx It's childish to like something that wasn't financially successful? Do you know how dumb that sounds? I could rattle of dozens of examples of games, moves, and TV shows that were of extremely high quality despite being financial failures. Unless you're trying to insinuate this game was a critical failure. Because it is one of the highest scoring games if the year, and the highest scoring game Ubisoft has had for a long time. So yeah, you ain'taking yourself sound any less dumb right now. But by all means, please try again. It's rather amusing to me

@Bigmanfan You sound dumb by defending this failure of a game. It was either too expensive or not good enough. Alan Wake 2 got good reviews as well, but it bombed and now Remedy is selling shares to Tencent. They messed up, but you ignore it just because you are not paying attention.

You could say Ubisoft has lost their crown.

@Gewertzx Funny you should mention paying attention, because I do spend quite a bit of time following the game industry. Did see the Remedy story by the way, but I haven't played Alan Wake 2 yet so I don't really have any thoughts on it. But anyway, point is I follow the game industry very closely, and I didn't even know this game was coming out until a month before it released. That's how awful the marketing was. Because believe it or not, there are may contributing factors to a game's success, one of those being marketing. Maybe if people actually knew this game was coming out, it could have done well. Metroid Dread d=sold incredibly well, proving there is still a market for this style of game. But once again, I ask how exactly it's "dumb" to be a fan of an unsuccessful game. Please enlighten me on your incredible insights, for they are stupid beyond my ability to comprehend.

I’m having a hard time believing this game sold poorly. I wonder what their expectations were. This game was very well made. This is a shame.

It was a fun game that was going to sell over time.

This sucks tho.

I’d give up every other ubisoft game for the cancelled Fenyx Rising sequel 😞

@Bigmanfan The game failed. You are acting like a drama queen. I hope that your abilities improve. If Ubisoft's game dev abilities don't improve they will have to relocate to China.

I didn't care for it. The sands of time remake should be more interesting for me.

@Ainu20 I may be one of the very few people who would feel like a smaller industry, smaller budgets, and fewer games every year would be a good thing, ultimately.

So many companies are lamenting their, apparently, poor sales- but the average person is no better off financially, and expceted to buy one, or several, new games every month to support the games you want to play/ enjoy. Add the sense of feeling like your time is limited, as games grow contrastingly more expansive, and it becomes obvious why there's a slump in sales (for several titles or franchises).

Inbetween the push for live service, and rpg's that take up to, or beyond, 100 hours, one has to wonder where to find the time (or cash!) to keep buying and playing all the good games that are released.

@Gewertzx I think you are deeply confused about something. I am no Ubisoft fan. I capital H hate Ubisoft. However the devs behind this game are undeniably talented
And they created something awesome. But go ahead. Keep throwing insults instead of saying anything of value. Not that you would be capable of that anyway.

Shame. All they'll interpret this as is "Well, I guess people don't want prince of Persia."

Well that sucks as The Lost Crown is one of the best games this year and one hell of a metroidvania. See this is what happens when you "wait for a sale" or won't buy for whatever dumb reason.

@Gewertzx TLC is one of the best games this year and funny enough more true to PoP then the 3D games ever were.

@Bigmanfan Pot calling the kettle black. You started using mean words first. I am just matching your energy.

If those devs are truly as talented as you think they will find more work. As things stand now they made a game that barely anyone cares about.

@Gewertzx Act like a child get called a child lol. At least I've had stuff to say other than "It failed it bad." Also "game that barely anyone cares about" give me a break. Even you can't be this dense. Just read this very comment section, the one in Nintendo life, metacritic reviews, steam reviews, etc. You're just...straight up wrong.

A Ubisoft title I actually enjoyed! Feel for the team! It's very cheap now too and I do recommend. I don't mind some shorter, less bloated games! These are some good devs!

@Bigmanfan You are a child. There. Happy?

What am I supposed to say when a game fails? Stop being such a drama queen. The developers didn't do a good enough job. Just like Remedy didn't do a good enough job with Alan Wake 2.

This is a real shame. I thought this was the perfect return to Prince of Persia, and is easily one of my GOTY’s. I even got the platinum trophy for it.

So Ubi’s death spiral continues.

Ubisoft is on fiiiiire these days 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Waiting for a good sale to pick this one up. Definitely wouldn't pay full price for this sort of mid material.

@Gewertzx Wow, what a mature and measured response. Have a good one.

@Bigmanfan You don't deserve anything better. Just like the developers who got fired.

@Gewertzx Fight Club and The Shawshank Redemption both bombed at the box office so i guess the directors didn't do a good enough job going by your dumb logic.

@DennisReynolds Obviously they did something incorrectly. If the movie bombs someone out there loses money and thus someone needs to get punished.

You don't even use logic.

The game failed. Deal with it. No1 cares about that ***** game.

@Gewertzx Your posts on this subject lack any sort of nuance. Suggesting the developers didn't do a good enough job when it is among the highest rated games of the year, just because it didn't find commercial success, doesn't make any sense. There's no need to keep repeating it either.

There are obvious other reasons for this apparent failure, such as the unusually high price point for this type of game (seriously, they usually go for half that price), the expectation of deep sales for Ubisoft games and the fact that 2D metroidvanias are still a pretty niche genre after all. It all points to Ubisoft misjudging the market for this type of game, rather than any sort of failure on the dev's part.

And honestly, I'm wondering if it even failed at all. It sold 300,000 copies within 2 weeks, that's a fairly promising start for this type of game. If their expectation was that it would sell millions, well then Ubisoft are even more out of touch than I thought. Not every metroidvania can pull a Hollow Knight.

@Ainu20 Nuance doesn't make money. If the game was better it would have found success. People are pretending as if the failure of this game is some Greek tragedy. No one cared about it. Just like no one cared about Alan Wake 2 despite main stream critics giving it high scores.

I have a feeling that I am wasting my time here. You are all just bored and try to waste time on here pretending that games are art not products and the other usual stuff. I just have to be better at ignoring it cause I'm not into RP. I just like seeing companies like Ubisoft and Remedy suffer in hopes that they will start listening to actual potential customers. Not the imaginary audience they are currently targeting.