In light of Ubisoft having recently cancelled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, the original creator of the Prince of Persia franchise—Jordan Mechner—has offered his condolences. In a recent post on his personal blog, Mechner wrote about how he wished his first post of the year would focus on celebrating Sands of Time. However, Ubisoft’s recent restructuring has resulted in “disappointing news to all fans”.
Further in the post, he noted how the experience of having a project that one has worked on for several years getting cancelled could be a “brutal experience”. It’s an especially bad experience for young team members who must now contend with several years spent on developing a game that won’t ship, leaving a gap in their resumé.
“My sympathy goes to the development team in Montreal; I can only imagine how they must feel. Having a project killed is a brutal experience. It’s an aspect of the game industry that the public doesn’t often see, but developers are all too familiar with,” he wrote.”
“A cancellation so close to release can be particularly devastating for younger team members who don’t have decades of past shipped titles on their resumé. It’s tough to suddenly absorb that the past four years of hard work you were proud of, and looking forward to seeing out in the world as your new calling card, will now never see daylight. Words like ‘loss’ and ‘grieving’ might seem exaggerated, but artists put their hearts into their work. Memories of nights and weekends spent in studio crunch instead of at home with loved ones, sacrifices that felt worth it at the time, only add to the pain retrospectively once their object ceases to exist.”
Mechner was a major figure in the gaming industry thanks to his work on not only the 1984 classic side-scrolling martial arts game Karateka, but also the creation of Prince of Persia in 1989. Interestingly, the last time he was involved with the series was as designer on 2003’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
Ubisoft announced the cancellation of the remake as part of a major organizational overhaul back in January. The move was described as being a “major organizational, operational, and portfolio reset to reclaim creative leadership and restore sustainable growth.” The game was cancelled alongside four other unannounced projects, three of which were going to be new IPs.
As part of this restructuring, Ubisoft’s development teams are being split across five “Creative Houses”, each of which will be responsible for specific franchises, genres, and target platforms. For instance, Vantage Studios will serve as Creative House 1, and will focus its efforts on Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six. Creative House 3, on the other hand, will work on live-service experiences like Brawlhalla, For Honor, and The Crew, among other franchises. Creative House 5 will be responsible for family-friendly and casual games, like Just Dance, Uno, and Idle Miner Tycoon.
