Developer Evil Empire has announced a slight delay to The Rogue Prince of Persia, citing Hades 2′s surprise release as the direct reason.
In an update on both Steam and X (formerly Twitter), the developer says, “Seeing as everyone and their mum is playing that game (including our entire team…. and their mums), we have decided to let people have their fun with it before we release The Rogue Prince of Persia.)”
Originally scheduled to release in Early Access on May 14, the studio hasn’t provided a new date yet but says it will reveal a precise date on Monday, May 13.
“While we have every confidence in The Rogue Prince of Persia, it’s not every day that a game in the same genre as you, which is one of the most anticipated upcoming games of 2024, will release in Early Access a week before you do the same,” says Evil Empire “We are not prideful enough to ignore the implications of that.”
Evil Empire also notes that the extra time will let them polish the game extra, add even more cool things, and squash extra bugs.
The Rogue Prince of Persia was revealed during the Triple-I initiative showcase in April, and it’s a pretty surprising step for the franchise. It’s unusual to see a company like Ubisoft partner with a prominent independent developer like Evil Empire, the studio behind Dead Cells.
As you can probably guess, The Rogue features Metroidvania and roguelite elements and has the prince trying to save Persia from a Hun invasion that he caused himself.
Hades 2, on the other hand, has already put up some massive player numbers, with 100,000 concurrent players on Steam eclipsing any numbers the original Hades set. It also launched straight into what could be the busiest week for indie games this entire year, as we also saw the release of Little Kitty, Big City, Animal Well, Crow Country, and Cryptkeeper.
