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.

It seems, however, that the company does still have some interesting plans for the series’ future. In a report published by known and credible insider Tom Henderson on Xfire, Ubisoft also has a second Prince of Persia game in the works. This will be a completely new project, and is allegedly going to be a 2.5D game that’s been inspired by the Ori games (which aren’t bad games to take inspiration from).

Ubisoft Montpellier, the studio behind Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, is apparently involved with the new Prince of Persia game, though Henderson doesn’t mention if they’re the leads on the project. There’s no word on when the game will release, or when it will be announced, but Henderson does say Ubisoft has updates, reveals, and announcements lined up for as many as 20 games, so there’s a chance that this could be one of them.

Meanwhile, it seems there’s movement when it comes to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake as well. Though many have feared that the game’s development has stalled, apparently, it is still in active development, and “needed to be overhauled” after receiving criticism from fans upon its reveal.

Henderson states Ubisoft is “possibly waiting” to release the 2.5D Prince of Persia game before The Sands of Time Remake. In October of last year, the company said that it was planning on launching the remake sometime before April 2023.

Courtesy of Henderson, there’s plenty of other potential Ubisoft-related leaks to dive into as well, including the likes of Assassin’s Creed Rift, The Crew 3, and an Immortals Fenyx Rising sequel, so make sure to read up on that.

Impossibly enough, it’s looking like Prince of Persia is going to come back with a major new full-fledged entry in the series. Talks of its return started when midway through August, a retailer listing spilled the beans on a Prince of Persia remake. Subsequent reports have strongly suggested that the game will be announced at tomorrow’s Ubisoft Forward event.

However, it seems the initial retailer leak may have gotten a few of the details wrong. The leak mentioned the Nintendo Switch as one of the platforms the game would be coming to, and that it would be releasing this November. However, over on Twitter, Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad is saying that both of those details are inaccurate.

Given the lineup of games Ubisoft has ready to go for the remainder of this year, it’s not surprising that Prince of Persia won’t be releasing in November as was previously reported. October sees the release of Watch Dogs: Legion, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is coming in November, and a recent leak mentioned a December launch date for Immortals Fenyx Rising. In light of that, it’s not surprising that Ubisoft wants to spread out its AAA releases a little bit.

Either way, we’ll find out soon enough, so stay tuned for more updates.

Nope. Not on Switch.

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 8, 2020

That leak was wrong in terms of platform and date

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 8, 2020

A couple of weeks ago, a retailer listing popped up online for a Prince of Persia remake– which, of course, was surprising because no such game has been announced by Ubisoft yet. Ordinarily, most people would have waved that away as being nothing, but not long after that listing went up, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier said that it was an accurate leak after all, and that the “surprise announcement” would be coming very soon.

With a second Ubisoft Forward digital showcase coming next week on September 10, the assumption has been that that’s when this game – if it is indeed real – will be announced, and Schreier recently said that that will be the case. Speaking recently during the Triple Click podcast (at around the 27:00 mark, as spotted by Wccftech), Schreier mentioned that Ubisoft are planning on announcing the Prince of Persia remake during the Ubisoft Forward show.

Of course, until such time an official announcement is made, it’s best to tread with caution, especially with a franchise that has been inactive for as long as Prince of Persia has been. That said, Schreier’s track record with inside info speaks for itself, and Ubisoft have a terrible history with leaks, so there’s probably something to this after all.

You can also expect an official reveal (or re-reveal) of Immortals Fenyx Rising (previously known as Gods and Monsters) at the Ubisoft Forward showcase. As per a recent leak, the game is due out this December.

Prince of Persia is one of Ubisoft’s most beloved dormant franchises (right up there with Splinter Cell), and fans have been begging for a new game in the series for a decade now. There’s been plenty of instances of false hope in that time, more recently with things such as fake domain name registrations and leaks of concept gameplay of a cancelled game– but now it seems there might be actual development on the franchise’s future. 

Guatemalan retailer MAX recently put up listings for a Prince of Persia Remake on its site, listing both Nintendo Switch and PS4 versions (you can view screengrabs at the bottom of this story, in case those listings get taken down), and mentioning November 2020 as the game’s release date. Ordinarily, a listing from a retailer, and not a very well known one at that, wouldn’t be anything to put too much stock in, but Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has given this a lot of legitimacy. 

Taking to Twitter, referring to this retailer listing, Schreier noted that this is another instance of a retailer leaking one of Ubisoft’s “surprise announcements”. As if that weren’t enough, responding to a tweet saying that the listing leak probably wasn’t accurate, Schreier said, “This tweet won’t age well.”

Of course, there’s still several questions to be asked, assuming that this leak is indeed accurate. For starters, what exactly is this a remake of? Ubisoft could go with any number of games from the franchise, though fans would surely love to see a Sands of Time remake. On top of that, if November 2020 is indeed its release date, can we expect the game to launch on next-gen consoles as well?

As for when this might be announced, Ubisoft have a second Ubisoft Forward show coming up in September, so that seems like a good place to unveil this. 

Of course, this is still an unverified leak, so don’t go counting your chickens just yet. That said, Schreier’s track record speaks for itself, and Ubisoft is a very leak-prone company, so… keep your fingers crossed. We’ll keep you updated as this story develops, so stay tuned.

Video game retailers sure love leaking Ubisoft's surprise announcements https://t.co/3BP8pbgdBK

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) August 19, 2020

This tweet won't age well lol

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) August 19, 2020

It’s now been a decade since we saw the last proper Prince of Persia game, and it seems like there’s no end in sight to our wait for a new one. Recently, however, it was discovered that a domain for princeofpersia6.com had been registered by Ubisoft, leading some to believe that a franchise revival might be in the works. Well, it turns out that was not entirely accurate.

The domain in question, it seems, wasn’t bought by Ubisoft at all, and had been registered by an unrelated third party. In fact, it’s now up for sale, and all the hits it got over the last week after the publicity it got are being used to bolster its sale. Take a look at the screencap below. So there you go- it doesn’t look like this had much to do with Prince of Persia or Ubisoft after all.

It recently emerged that a new Prince of Persia was in the early stages of development at Ubisoft a few years back. Titled Prince of Persia: Redemption, a pre-rendered gameplay mock-up of the project was discovered a couple weeks back. Take a look through here and lament at the fact that Ubisoft seem to have no interest in this beloved franchise anymore.

This is the most Ubisoft leak of all Ubisoft leaks, and that’s saying something. As spotted by a user over on ResetEra, a pre-rendered pitch gameplay trailer for Prince of Persia: Redemption, which looks like a cancelled reboot of the beloved Ubisoft franchise, has surfaced on YouTube.

Showing lots of parkour and wall-running, it looks like a more frenetic take on the series’ core identity, while the combat and the cinematic nature of the central set-piece – which sees the Prince running through a city while it’s literally being torn apart – give it a very distinct vibe that feels like a cross between God of War and Uncharted. Some combat is also shown- take a look below.

Here’s the most interesting bit about this leak though- it seems this video has been up on YouTube since 2012, and no one noticed it until now. How something like this remains online and doesn’t get noticed for 8 years is beyond comprehension.

And this is definitely not fake either. Former Ubisoft animator Jonathan Cooper has tweeted about this, more or less confirming that this was real, and also stating that this pre-rendered pitch for the game inspired the pitch for Assassin’s Creed 3 (on which he worked) as well. On top of that, artist Christophe Prélot’s LinkedIn profile also mentions that he worked on a cancelled Prince of Persia game between 2010 and 2011, and his work entailed creating a city “in destruction with scripted events”- which is what is being shown in this video.

It’s clear that this will never see the light of day, but it still looks like a salivating proof-of-concept for a beloved series that refuses to come back.

Recently, Ubisoft registered a Prince of Persia domain name, so, you know- never lose hope (even in the face of overwhelming odds).

The Prince of Persia series was quite something back in the day. The Sands of Time released in 2003 and kicked off a unique trilogy that was a reboot of the classic platforming series, filled with time rewinding, doppelgangers, and some epic storylines. It was a premier franchise for Ubisoft up until the 2008 reimagining of the franchise, but has largely gone missing since then (outside a small revisit when the film adaptation released). People have been pining for its return for years, and now something could be pointing to a potential comeback for the Prince.

As noticed by the Gaming and Leaks Reddit, which you can see here, it was discovered that princeofpersia6.com has been registered, and the domain does trace back to Ubisoft servers. It’s worth noting there was a princeofpersia5.com that was registered in 2005, but there is not a princeofpersia7.com, so this doesn’t seem to be a case of a company just registering domains en masse to protect copyrights, which is something that is not uncommon.

The franchise has popped up in some random uses recently, such as a limited event theme in For Honor. Could we actually be seeing a return of the Prince? I won’t hold my breath, frankly, but I’m going to close my eyes and wish all the same.

Of the many new IPs that Ubisoft has announced over the past few years – from the competitive ship combat in Skull and Bones to the open world space combat of Starlink: Battle for Atlas – a few names have been notably missing. Where is the next Splinter Cell? On top of that, where’s the next Prince of Persia?

The former saw its last release in 2013 with Splinter Cell: Blacklist while the latter had Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands in 2010. Though Ubisoft has teased a possible Splinter Cell announcement before, it has yet to actually happen. That doesn’t mean some within the company aren’t working to make these games a reality.

Game Informer recently spoke to Ubisoft chief creative officer Serge Hascoet, who’s worked on current titles in franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. When asked about some brands that had fallen “dormant” in the past several years and whether there’s a roadmap for any of them, Hascoet had an interesting answer.

“I love Splinter Cell. I love Prince of Persia. I can’t disclose any information at this time, but I can say we are fighting for resources. It’s not a question of will, it’s a question of means.”

The rest of the interview is interesting, especially when Hascoet talks about how the company has “no one rule” when it comes to creating new IP. “We have to believe in the ideas, and the ideas can come from people who know how to do games. We have to believe in the idea and if we believe in them then we decide to make the game.

“We moved from Prince of Persia to Assassin’s Creed because we thought the prototype was compelling enough to do something new and fresh. Once again it was a team idea. But, it’s case by case. You can look at all of our creations, and you can see it’s a mix between us – me and my team – the dev team, possibly [Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot]. It’s very organic.”

In the meantime, the wait continues for the next Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and perhaps even Rayman at this point.

PS Plus has in general been pretty disappointing for a very long time now, as far as its monthly offerings of games are concerned. That, coupled with the price rise for PS Plus last month that Sony did not even bother to explain, has led to general discontent with the service. So if Sony wanted to placate their customers on the back of the price increase, they needed to come out swinging with their offerings for PS Plus this month.

One can argue that that is exactly what they did- this month of PS Plus games is the best one we have had in a good year, and I would argue that it is the best one we have had since the launch of the PlayStation 4 in general. Every system comes out well this month, with some very high quality games being offered all around.

On the PS4, Sony are offering Lords of the Fallen, the excellent Dark Souls-like that was launched a couple of years ago, along with their star digital game, Journey. Journey is also available on PS3, alongside Ubisoft’s 2010 Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Datura, and Badland. That latter game is also available on PS4 and on PS Vita, which also gets Amnesia: Memories.

It’s a great lineup all around- and should make many, who threatened to cancel their subscription to the service, probably rethink their decision. I know it made me do just that.