Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Team Mostly 'Shifted to Other Projects', Ubisoft Confirms

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.

@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..

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.

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.

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

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.

@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.

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.

You could say Ubisoft has lost their crown.

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 😞

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.

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.

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!

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.

@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.

@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.

Looking at the sales charts for it in the month it released it was 13th in the US according to Circana and 4th in the UK from the Nintendo Life article with almost all the sales being split between Playstation and Nintendo.

Xbox's numbers for it were irrelevant as usual, I guess they just looked at it as a should've been on Gamepass game but I wonder what the PC sales were like, anyway it's a shame if they've been closed, hopefully the talent gets picked up by other studios straight away.

EDIT: looking at the Steam lifetime concurrent it definitely flopped on there as well.

@Gewertzx Its always the newer accounts with no profile pics with trollish views like this.

The team behind The Lost Crown is also making Rayman series right? Dang that sucks. I read somewhere the game sold 300K copies back in January, which sounds good for AA games budget without plenty of marketing.

I already tried the demo and quite enjoyed it. Sadly in this economy i can't spend a lot for video games.

@Gewertzx If good games who got positive reviews but didn't sold well then that's not the developers fault but more on publishers fault who didn't give enough marketing or choose the wrong release date. Japan Studio Puppeteer for example, it's a great game that received 80% at metacritics. But it failed to sell well because Sony released it 1 week before GTA 5 and the same week with Diablo 3 for console.

@get2sammyb I have to say, people tend to talk up a sh*t online... oh, UbiSoft suck because they only make huge open-world games - the same formula - the same xp boost packs... and then they ACTUALLY produce a game that by all accounts was very good, and should have been exactly what people wanted... and people stayed away in droves. Edit - and yes, I can accept the pricing was a good reason to hold off... and that would be on Ubisoft management.

I didn't buy it because I've never got into this genre - but it seems to me people will stamp their feet, shake their fists - then secretly buy AC Shadows on discount or dive back into another 200+ hours of Valhalla.

This was entirely Ubi's doing. Everyone wanted the PoP Sands remake and I personally liked how it looked, but they said they were going to rework it and then announced this. Of course the fans just ignored it and it flubbed. Shame, really.

@Gewertzx I am a little confused by your first comment... they should basically be punished for building a smaller-quality game; so the company gets gutted in order for it to build more bigger - quality games? Not sure that's what people are really wanting (the quality yes - bigger no). If anything, I think people are time-poor now, and it makes investing in big open worlds very difficult (unless you are one of the people that spends 500+ hours in a open world game).

Their game was by all accounts very high quality - and a very fun/rewarding metroidvania experience. Just didn't crack the mainstream, for whatever reason.

Unfortunately I think PoP - LC was likely Ubisoft's response to an internal drive to make better more focused games from the devs... and now that it's "failed to meet expectations" - they're being told to get back into their grind-cells and pop out another AC game. That's not good for the devs, the players, or the industry at large.

@Gewertzx Good reviews is a proof for the publisher that the game is doing well critically, which means the developers did a good job.

And l'm pretty sure publishers also give bonus to their developers if the game got good reviews. Not sure with Ubisoft though.

But if good game with good reviews doesn't sell well then that's the publisher fault for not doing a good job at marketing. They can't blame the developers because they already delivered a good game.

@DennisReynolds ok - I agree with most of your sentiments, but I also think it's not cool to say "see what happens when you wait for a sale".... First off, not everyone can afford to buy full-price games (or may prefer buying more games at cheaper prices). Secondly, there's also a free-market component. Looking at the comments it seems that a LOT of people felt the type of game was over-priced; so this is a market response.

I think it's problematic when studios hold gamers to ransom... buy our product at 'our inflated prices' or we punish the devs (and the gamers by denying them choice)... now buy another AC game. Either way - less "gamer shame" is always a good policy.

Now I can't comment on the inflated price part, because I'm not into metroidvanias, so I don't have a good feel personally. I just heard it was genuinely a good game.

I've always thought the subscription model is perhaps the worst thing for gaming longevity because it devalues games; and teaches gamers NOT to buy. Yet maybe this game would have done best on a subscription service? At least that way it could have got market pentration through a low entry-barrier. However I think the reality is that the arguments for why this happens are quite complicated though, and I don't think it's one thing or another.

Edit - also, having a profile pic doesn't make you more 'worthwhile'. Just saying... for obvious reasons.

@Gewertzx Alan Wake 2 doesn't have physical release at launch and that turns off many people. And if it doesn't sold well that means Epic as the publisher doesn't do a good job at marketing the game.

I'm not sure what's opening a business have to do with this conversation. But i doubt you know anything about business.

Huge shame. Playing this at the moment and really enjoying it. Really great game with a nice challenge.

@Gewertzx why are you on this forum? Edit: I'd suggest it might be a good time to take a break, and it's always good to jump back into comment threads with a fresh set of eyes.

It looked decent but I also never picked it up, I have not bought many games this year my backlog is so huge I am on a roll playing through stuff I got in sales years ago. I will probably go on a shopping spree during the January Sales of Black Friday, as I do every year ...

The Industry has trained me to wait a year to get the patched version of a game at half the price or less. You reap what you sow.

Ubisoft's standard releases aren't really my cup of tea, so this game was the first game of theirs I had bought since Rayman and Scott Pilgrim a decade ago. I'm sad that the lesson they are likely to take away is to not invest in smaller scale projects, because this was a game that made me so happy for the few weekends it took to beat the game originally and for the weekend I spent on the DLC.

The only thing left of value at Ubisoft is the Anno team.

Just goes to show that the majority aren't interested in the smaller budget games, plus who wants to buy Ubisoft games at full price when they have huge discounts a month or two after release, plus they have a subscription service where new games get added day one.

Incredibly short sighted. They were the only hope I had left that Ubisoft might produce some more games with soul. Welp...

@Marquez Hate it for (some) of their employees. Hope the community director goes first, and good riddance to the company itself.

I genuinely didn't even know this had come out yet. I thought it had just been announced but not released - I remember people complaining about the main character a while ago, but I guess that was actually the release. But yeah, to be honest you take a series that was big in the 2000s, very niche in its original incarnation, and you change it into a tired genre that oversaturates the indie space, and seemingly change the protagonist... Not gonna work, is it? Imagine if the next Tomb Raider is a 2D platformer where the main character isn't, or doesn't look like, Lara. Not a little side project but the actual next Tomb Raider and the only one in years.

Back to the usual UbiSlop then.

One of the very best Metroidvenia Ive ever played.

I got it day one same with its DLC - The Dark Mask.

The creativity of them level der designs are simply one of the greatest level designs ever.
I was constantly surprised by them. Im completely saddend for these news.

@TrickyDicky99 can you blame people though, awful games for ridiculous prices, this is so forgettable, next year might save it, but I mean the games next year are sequels to already released IPs, and now they push the ps5 pro to increase fps/gfx on the mediocre games,

@Gewertzx Have you played TLC? If not your opinion on it quality is completely worthless.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare It was a £50 game and got great reviews there was little reason not to buy it at launch. End of the day people will say "i will wait for a sale" or "wait for Plus" and then act shocked when the game doesn't sell and the sequel is cancelled.

I never said a profile pic makes you worthwhile so how about read what i actually said instead of making up stuff.

I was aware it was a good game and I'm in to Metroidvanias big time but I didn't buy. I just don't have the time for all these releases.

Brass tacks, I worked 76 hours last week. Trying to keep the lights on and meeting financial goals has become harder for most of us in recent years and the most valuable resource - time - is in precious short supply. Just too many games.

I had just enough time to plat Silent Hill 2 this month and honestly I'm surprised I was able to even do that. Cost me some much needed sleep but soooo worth it.

Had a whole lineup of horror games I wanted to get to for spooky month but nope, absolutely not happening. Just threw the games on the 750+ game backlog like throwing bodies in a mass grave.

@DennisReynolds woah - calm down. The point was - a lot of people were saying it was too expensive (I don't know), but I think it was not good form to try and shame gamers who don't want to / or can't pay what you want to/can. The profile pic comment was a joke. Or do I need to put ?

That really sucks. This was far and away the absolute best PoP game I played since 2008 and the original Sands of Time. This game was a gem and had so much creative energy behind it.

It's hard for me to blame fellow gamers, because we live in a time where people want to be cautious with their money, which I understand a little, and whether it's right or wrong, Ubisoft don't have the perfect reputation. That said, I do remember seeing the comments when it was announced. "This looks like an indie knockoff, not a real PoP game." "The character looks bad." "It's Ubisoft so it'll be broken at launch."

It sounded like some people just didn't want to give it a chance, and that's sad. I was happy to give it a chance and it made the GOTY conversation for me. I just had such a great time with it, I loved experiencing it, I wanted others to experience it, and more importantly, I wanted ANOTHER experience like it. And because of these results, and whatever unfair expectations Ubisoft corporate have placed on the devs, it sounds like I never will.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare The point people are quick to act shocked and sad over news like this but are also the same people who will proudly boast about waiting for a sale or Plus forgetting that reasons like that are why it never sold in the first place. Sure if you can't afford it at launch that's ok but a lot of the time that's not the reason its just cheapness.

So much for maybe getting another excellent 2D Rayman.

There really is just nothing left for me at Ubisoft.

@DennisReynolds we all get this - as I said in my reply, I personally think subscription services are just teaching people not to buy games (ie devaluing them) - but at the same time, a lot of people make the most of them, and it makes a whole range of games available that they wouldn't get access to otherwise. I've had my fair share of 'throwing my hands up in the air' over the fact that people are potentially sleep-walking into a games apocolypse; but our experiences aren't necessarily other's experience. And then you get people who will tell people proudly that companies deserve to go under, unless they make "their sort of" game. We're not going to change people. Better to just enjoy gaming - while we can .

@DennisReynolds That sounds a bit harsh. At the end of the day, you can't buy every game and even if you could, you can't play them all. Someone might've looked at this game's price and thought, I can buy two other indies instead and support those devs, and then get this one later.

As a side note, I remember getting Tales of Kenzera which was pretty similar and released around the same time, because I felt that studio would need the support more. That team also ended up shutting down, so sometimes it feels like no matter what we do, it all crashes and burns anyway.

Ubisoft seems to enjoy self sabotage. This was a great game. Shame it didn't meet a CEO's expectation in sales.

Tried the demo thought it was meh, each to their own I suppose but I would rather Ubisoft had put the resources into The Division 3 or a new Splinter Cell game or Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six

I'm curious how much is cost to make the game? Google says it made $15 million, I'm not sure if that's profit or just sales. Either way I can't imagine it cost that much to make? It's really well made but it's a smaller title and smaller team. Did it not make money or did it not make as much money as the shareholders wanted?

I do think there is a strong argument for what people said about people waiting for Ubisoft games to come down in price. They're notorious for it at this point. And services like PS+ and GamePass surely eat into sales even if they're not on it at launch but from people assuming they will turn up on it.

Either way it's sad to hear. I've had no interest in their big "AAAA" games for some time now.

Definitely one of my GOTY no doubt, absolutely brilliant game, it is disappointing as it is a million times better than Far Cry 6 (I am a fan of Far Cry too - don't shoot me) but we will see Far Cry 7 and probably no Lost Crown follow up 🤦‍♂️

So Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown officially gets lost down the back of the 'Good Ubisoft Titles That Should Get Sequels' sofa, resting next to Immortals: Fenyx Rising...

The update makes it a little more digestible. It's a shame that they don't get a crack at another game as a team, but good to hear they all kept their jobs.

@RBMango I would D1 buy an IMMORTALS sequel. Sunk hours into that game and really enjoyed it!

The update from Ubisoft makes this article a bit of a nothing burger. This happens quite a lot in industry I think.

Push Square commentators told me only live service games fail and that games like this are what “people” want.

@UltimateOtaku91 who wants to buy Ubisoft games at full price when they have huge discounts a month or two after release.

I'm sure Star Wars Outlaws released August 30, 2024? it's still £55+ at retail outlets here in the UK and the digital store fronts are close to £70 for the standard edition. So, definitely no huge discounts yet. Be interesting to see what happens at the end of this month.