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Joypad, a French gaming publication, has just published the first in-depth preview of the next game in the Prince of Persia. Eurogamer got their hands on a copy of the magazine and was nice enough to translate the most important nuggets into English for us. According to Joypad via Eurogamer, the game is being developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the original developer of Sands of Time, and will be available for PC, the PS3, and Xbox 360 sometime this year. Interestingly, the game will employ cell-shaded graphics but won’t be entirely like those used in Viewtiful Joe or The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. According to Eurogamer, the Prince “wouldn’t look out of place in a Final Fantasy game.” Furthermore, “gameplay centers on healing a corrupted world in the style of Okami, Shadow of the Colossus or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess,” and the time control feature of the former trilogy has been scrapped. That’s probably good news considering just how played out that feature is now. Jean-Christophe Guyot, the game’s creative director, told Joypad that the goal this time around was to create a game that was steeped in fantasy. In fact, the story for the new Prince of Persia will be completely distinct from the original. According to Guyot, this has allowed the development team to do away with the old conventions and move on to a tale that is more similar to A Thousand and One Nights .
Mr. Guyot continues to say that the new look and feel was met by corporate management with some hesitation, but they never hindered the teams’ core ambition. According to the article, “They knew we weren’t going to make a second Assassin’s Creed. However, they did raise their eyebrows a bit at the new, stylised artistic direction. They were worried the Americans wouldn’t like it. There were many discussions, but they never said no to us.” Combat will still be a key element of the new Prince. One major change though is that enemies will be much less numerous and far more challenging. That should leave plenty of time for more intense puzzles and acrobatic feats. Guyot called the game “Zelda-esque, old school, with very contrasting levels”. In other words, there will be an open world followed by more linear mission gauntlets. Look for epic boss battles that rely heavily on dynamic sword duels. Guyot described boss battles as being more similar to Soul Calibur than to God of War and hoped that bosses would be reminiscent of the Metal Gear Solid series. That’s quite a bit of name-dropping, but he seems confident that they will pull it off. Will bring you more details as they come in! |
