Imagine, the year is 2024, and not only did one Prince of Persia game come out (The Lost Crown), but a second one is also coming. Now scream it from the mountaintops: the year IS 2024, and Evil Empire — the masterminds behind Dead Cells — and Ubisoft have been cooking something up. An idea born from a night at the tavern turned into something great: introducing The Rogue Prince of Persia is a mixture of equal parts Dead Cells and Prince of Persia while taking the player hostage in an addicting time loop that includes Sands of Time as a feature, not a button press.
In The Rogue Prince of Persia, we return to the capable unnamed protagonist, who faces a kingdom in peril once more. Of course, being the only capable warrior in all Ctesiphon means you have to solve it, but this time, the Prince himself has provoked the demise of the kingdom. After ‘hallucinating’ this at the hands of the provoked Huns, the Prince sets out to save Ctesiphon, except it wasn’t a hallucination.
“Like Dead Cells, no two runs will be the same; The Rogue Prince of Persia contains randomly generated levels, and each run does feel like a brand new level.”
The Prince has the power to return to life in The Rogue Prince of Persia, and instead of pulling the trigger to engage a reverse time loop, once the Prince dies, he has to start from the beginning, as is the curse of the roguelite genre. Evil Empire and Ubisoft have joined forces to make a genre shift for an old favourite that makes too much sense to fail, and let me tell you, it does NOT fail.
First and foremost, what was sorely missing in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown — and one of the most iconic moves in all of PoP — the wall run has made its safe return from not being featured since 2010 and only remembered as a cover image for 2003’s Sands of Time. Not only has it returned, but it is necessary to get anywhere in The Rogue Prince of Persia.
The Rogue Prince of Persia is — like The Lost Crown — a 2.5D perspective, and the Prince can race up against the backdrop to reach new heights. This focus on using the background as a step stool creates some wild exploration techniques. By combo pressing LT with jumps, the Prince feels better to control than ever, and Evil Empire has this roguelite flying at a crisp 60 fps.
Aside from his new purple colour scheme and the magnificent return of the wall run, the Prince has a Dead Cells amount of new weaponry to don when combatting the invading Hun forces. First, he can throw a flying sidekick that can slam enemies together and provoke stars to spin around their heads in a dazed state (like your favourite Saturday Morning cartoon).
The kick is glorious. Enemies stand no match against a sidekick from an immortal monarch that sends them spiralling to their doom; traps do work two ways (it’s spikes, it’s always spikes). The use of the environment works beautifully, and Evil Empire almost demands that the player engage with the playground they’ve built. Like Dead Cells, no two runs will be the same. The Rogue Prince of Persia contains randomly generated levels, and each run does feel like a brand new level.
The Prince can also deploy a dodge maneuver pulled right from the Sands of Time trilogy; he vaults over the top of an enemy and appears behind them. Witnessing this for the first time in Evil Empire’s new title deployed my very own time travel sequence and brought me back to how cool my 12-year-old self thought the Prince was by doing this so effortlessly. Nostalgia, check.
“The gameplay is fluid and impressive, with a genuine emphasis on retaining the feel of Dead Cells but with a brand-new identity.”
Maybe to coincide with the times, I also found street vendors, who double as children, that sell sharp weapons to adults. Now, before you call CPS, the kids help your adventure, so it might be worth it to hold off. This is where you can spend your hard-earned money on better equipment than the stock dual daggers. The Saber was my go-to, but there was also a weighty axe, and the Prince could deploy ranged weapons such as bows and chakras.
The children can also (sometimes) sell mighty boons (for a price) that make your standard attacks and techniques more lethal and other risky boon areas require a blood tribute to attain their offerings. This risk-reward system is enticing and allows a more skilled player to grapple with fate while becoming noticeably more powerful. Evil Empire appears to have rolled out this system, bolstered from the Dead Cells days. These can also be found after trouncing bosses, speaking of…
After making it far enough to the beginning of the third biome (and the last part of my preview), I was confronted by a big bad, true boss fight. What faced me was a meat mountain attached to horns and goat legs, you guessed it, a minotaur. After learning his moves on my first failure fighting it, I returned for vengeance. The mechanics of the boss fight is also very Evil Empire.
If you build your prince accordingly, it can be an easier time, but for the sweat-seeking gamers, you could go vanilla and use no extra equipment—a poor but acrobatic playthrough of The Rogue Prince of Persia. Once again, the emphasis is on player choice. When the Minotaur collapsed and was defeated, I grabbed a sweet boon that allowed me to jump into the air and send a shockwave across the floor like my fallen foe. Real boss stealing hasn’t felt this good since Mega Man X.
The Rogue Prince of Persia is a delightful surprise. During my limited time with it, I was able to fully dive under the very capable guise of the Prince and work with the superb controls Evil Empire has whipped up. The gameplay is fluid and impressive, with a genuine emphasis on retaining the feel of Dead Cells but with a brand-new identity. In this new genre (and the beautiful animated artwork), the Prince looks better than ever. This is why I wish I could use the Sands of Time to fast forward to when The Rogue Prince of Persia enters early access on May 14. Fans can also check out the release trailer below!
