New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

[ThaGenecyst]

It was only a matter of time. Scans from the latest issue of French gaming mag Joypad have been posted right here (courtesy of pro-gamers.fr), revealing snapshots from Ubi's brand-new Prince of Persia game.

The new so-far-untitled Prince of Persia game appears to feature a brand new art style - it looks as though Ubisoft Montreal is going for a mix of visual styles, offering something between Assassin's Creed and games like XIII (Ubi's comic-style shooter from 2003). Ubisoft officially confirmed a new Prince of Persia game, but did not reveal any in-game screens, videos or teasers of any kind. Still, it could be a matter of days, so sit tight.

The new Prince of Persia web site also received a snazzy new logo. Nothing more than that, I'm afraid.

Thanks Xbox360FanBoy.

[RoyalBoyle78]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

that screen is a little weird looking.

[Tha_Kid]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Definitely looking forward to this though i miss the rewind time feature already.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Not diggin' the cel-shading, to tell the truth.

[Flawless]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

I think it looks great and I'm sure it will look fantastic in motion. Cell-shading, whatever, we need more games using different art styles than the norm.

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Late last month, Ubisoft finally officially announced Prince of Persia for the current generation, and Edge magazine was said to have the juicy scoop in an upcoming issue. That issue has now arrived, and the first details are here.

As it was already known, the game is being worked on at Ubisoft Montreal, the same studio that created the Sands of Time trilogy (The Sands of Time, Warrior Within, The Two Thrones). While people are being brought in from other projects, the core team working on the new game has remained the same as it was with the trilogy, meaning the game is in experienced and very capable hands.

Prince of Persia is powered by Anvil, the same game engine used in Assassin’s Creed, however, the two games look quite a bit different. While Assassin’s Creed went for the realistic look, the visual style in POP is inspired by Japanese movies like Princess Mononoke, and games like Okami, and the new Street Fighter. “Fantasy, but credible,” as the game’s visual art director Mickael Labat puts it.

When it comes to any relations to the previous games, producer Ben Mattes doesn’t leave any room for speculation: “The Sands of Time are dead and gone,” saying that the new game is a new chapter with its own story, proved by the fact that the player won’t start off as a prince this time around, but instead as a drifter and adventurer, lost in the desert. “We’re starting afresh, in the same universe, and we wanted to bring something new while keeping what worked before,” creative director Jean-Christophe Guyot explains, “He’ll be confronted by a lot of fantasy settings.”

The game will throw the player into a conflict between two gods; the god of light, Ormazd, and his brother Ahriman, the god of darkness. And whenever the gods have a score to settle, it is of course the world of the mortals where any battles must take place. Ahriman has released an infection that is basically holding the world in an ever-intensifying choke grip, and it’s up to the good prince to save the day.

And how he goes about it is up to the player — the new POP is going to be (more of) an open-world game. While the game world won’t be free-roaming, Mattes says it will be “truly non-linear” and will allow the player to progress through the game in preferred order: “We really wanted to create a POP experience where the player has a much greater authorship over their global experience, so that it wasn’t a completely linear game where they played through it once, and that was it. At the same time, we recognized you will never get the POP experience we want — those long strings of choreographed acrobatics — from a true sandbox. We adopted an open-world structure where the player has the macro-level choice in how it unfolds, how the story unfolds, in terms of which regions to visit and which times, and which bosses they fight and when.”

Speaking of fighting, don’t expect the combat system to be anything like what we saw in Assassin’s Creed. The player will go against only one bad guy at a time - every fight in the game will be a duel. “Combat is a game in and of itself,” Mattes says, “We really want to play off the strategic advantages of the environments.”

“Every fight in the game should feel like a boss fight. The feeling of being against a very difficult adversary who’s every bit the swordsman as you are, and you have to use all your strategy and skill just to get past him; maybe you don’t kill him, just drive him off. That’ll happen often — you’ll drive an enemy away, then they’ll stalk you to return and fight again.”

It certainly sounds like the current generation incarnation of Prince of Persia will be considerably different from what we’ve seen in the previous games, all graphics-, story-, and gameplay-wise.

Ubisoft is also keeping a big secret under wraps for now, something that will apparently be fundamental to everything in the game — the puzzles, the fighting and the acrobatics. Let’s just hope it won’t be as ‘big’ as Assassin’s Creed’s sci-fi ‘twist’.

Prince of Persia will be released for the PS3, 360 and PC, along with a “complementary” DS version which is “not a sequel, not a prequel and certainly not a port,” later this year.

[Scott]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Not really my type of game, but might give it a rental.

[Flawless]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Gamersyde

[luv_mist]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

The style isn't appealing enough. I think they're trying to bring attention to their Assassin's Creed game as being the realistic type so that they won't both be eating away at each other's limelight. Not really a fan of this art style though I can't make a solid decision before I see it in action. They need to over exaggerate the muscles and stuff with the Prince cause he looks too bland. Give him more definition. I guess I'm in the God of War mindset or something. We'll see. I'm keeping an eye out. Not all about the look.......

[Flawless]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Prince of Persia First Look
The Prince is back -- sleeker, smarter and better than ever.

Many who played the Ubisoft hit Assassin's Creed last year probably had the same thought mid-way through the game: Boy, it'd be pretty awesome if they turned this into Prince of Persia. Well, in a way, Ubisoft Montreal has done just that. Prince of Persia is back, using an upgraded version of the Assassin's Creed engine and starting anew with a brand new Prince and a completely different storyline. Gone are Farah and the Sands of Time, replaced by what appears to be an even more interesting story and a whole new gameplay philosophy.

If you had a fondness for The Sands of Time, don't worry. Ubisoft isn't soiling the franchise in any way. In fact, the Montreal team is setting the Prince free of the shackles of the previous three titles. Though the Prince loses his time powers, he is gaining more acrobatic skills, a completely new combat system, and an open world free of the linear constraints of the previous game. Though Prince of Persia has an open world and is using the Assassin's Creed engine, don't think of it as a clone. This is POP for the new generation and it looks and feels like the perfect transition.

[Flawless]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

CG Trailer:

<embed src='http://videomedia.ign.com/ev/ev.swf' flashvars='object_ID=890664&downloadURL=http://xbox360movies.ign.com/xbox360/video/article/876/876957/POP_trailer_052708_flvlowwide.flv&allownetworking= 'all' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='433' height='360'></embed>

[Flawless]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Prince of Persia: Never Fight Alone
The Prince's new companion, Elika, will be by your side at all times helping in combat, solving puzzles, and performing her own daring acrobatic feats.

Elika is by your side for the majority of the new Prince of Persia. She is primarily controlled by the AI, but is meant to be an assistant, never an annoyance. Elika isn't going to get in your way like so many other AI partners in other games. You just need to watch her in action for five minutes to see how gracefully she avoids hindering the Prince in any way.

<embed src='http://videomedia.ign.com/ev/ev.swf' flashvars='object_ID=890664&downloadURL=http://xbox360movies.ign.com/xbox360/video/article/877/877037/pop_interview_052708_flvlowwide.flv&allownetworkin g='all' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='433' height='360'></embed>

New Screens

[Flawless]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Prince of Persia Producer Interview

What are you looking to do with the next game that will sort of leap off what’s been done previously.

Ben Mattes: We’re looking to “reboot” the franchise. We’re looking for a fresh, bang, wow start on next-gen platforms, because this is an all-new Prince of Persia, with no chronological or even necessarily spiritual connection to the Sands of Time trilogy. It’s a new prince, new environments, new heroes, new villains, new characters…really the only thing that’s common to the previous Prince of Persia games is that it respects the same brand fundamentals, the same pillars that make the franchise very successful:

You’ve got your young, charismatic, acrobatic, agile warrior who can run on walls, who saves the world through a combination of acrobatics, puzzle solving and combat. That’s the brand fundamentals, the brand pillars that we’re totally respecting. We’re not changing Prince of Persia into a puzzle or into an RPG or anything like that. But after that, it’s…all right, we’re going to “next gen,” so let’s go big. It’s all new everything. New artistic direction. New combat system. New open-world world structure. New deeply involved, integrated AI cooperative character. I mean, let’s really wow them by bringing a lot of new stuff that raises the bar for, not just what people think a Prince of Persia is, but what they think a next-gen action/adventure game is.

Our ambition here is to reclaim the throne as the leader of the action/adventure genre, reestablish Prince of Persia as the franchise in the action/adventure genre and hit next gen just full speed.

It does seem like it would lend itself to co-op if it was convenient to jump in…

Ben Mattes: You’re talking here about the Elika character that you saw in the video? Elika is this AI-controlled, cooperative character who does acrobatics with you, does combat with you, solves puzzles with you…so certainly I can understand the question—why not put that control in the hands of another player? The thing is, Prince of Persia on his own, taking Elika aside for a second, it’s all about the flow, right? It’s about the choreography of this acrobat and the agility with which he maneuvers through the world. It’s absolutely critical to the experience. It’s what we have that Ninja Gaiden doesn’t have, that Tomb Raider doesn’t have, that none of the other games have—it’s how the prince maneuvers through the world that gives it that sort of unique element.

Now magnify that by a factor of X by introducing Elika into the equation, who is literally choreographing with you through the world—when you jump, she’s right there behind you in case you need to cooperate with her in an acrobatic that’s going to allow you to reach farther, reach higher, etc. When you’re in combat and you swing your sword at an enemy, he might throw up a shield to block your sword…and suddenly you need Elika to jump in and do a magical attack in order to bash down that shield, she’s got to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time in order to flip off of your back, jump and—BOOM—hit the enemy and then get out of there again.

There’s no way—literally no way—to maintain that choreographed sensation, that feeling of you and Elika always being in the right place at the right time together, having that sort of symbiotic link in a traditional cooperative gameplay, whereby I’m giving you the second control and we’re struggling over where the camera is supposed to be and I’m yelling at you because you’ve gone to the left and I’ve gone to the right, and I’ve jumped and you weren’t in the right place at the right time, so I fell to my death. It just wouldn’t work.

Again, it was an interesting idea—and it’s something we might explore in the future—but for now, it’s single player all the way.

Regarding the story, what’s the premise that will lead players into this game?

Ben Mattes: Thousands and thousands of years ago, there were two ancient, primal, celestial beings: Ahriman, the god of chaos, the god of corruption; and Ormazd, his brother, the god of light, god of creation. These beings clash, they fight a celestial battle and Ormazd wins. He takes Ahriman and all of Ahriman’s minions, and he imprisons them forever in this Tree of Life, this gigantic tree that’s a prison for Ahriman. Around that, he builds this magical garden, this magical wall, and Ormazd takes his lieutenants who fought with him in the war, he names them Ahura and he says, “You, Ahura, are the defenders of the Tree of Life. You are the guardians of the Tree of Life. It is your job to make sure this tree never falls and Ahriman never escapes…and your children and your children’s children, through eternity. See you later.” And he just disappears.

Humanity…this select group of humanity, the Ahura, assume the responsibility of guarding this tree from outside invasion and making sure that it never weakens, it never dies, and Ahriman never escapes.

Fast forward 200 generations later and you know what? Humanity is human—they lose faith, they die out, they move away, they whatever. Now there’s only a few of them, including our main support character, Elika, who’s one of the last of the Ahura. Into this walled garden wanders our prince through a series of events: Our hero is coming back from a previous quest, he just wants to get home, buy some booze and hang out with some pretty women, but suddenly he gets caught up in a sandstorm and the next thing he knows, he’s in this Garden of Eden, if you will. Elika runs into him and says, “You’ve got to help me…you’ve got to help me. These guards are chasing me” He says, “Hey there, pretty lady…anything you say.”

So, they run into the middle of this oasis, they see the Tree of Life just in time to see it all come crumbling down. Ahriman escapes. The corruption, that is his physical manifestation within the Earth, spreads through this walled garden, infecting and corrupting everything, driving out all of the life, and then suddenly the story is there. The prince and Elika do what she was raised for generations to do, which is to prevent this kind of thing from happening—but if it happens, make it right. So the prince and Elika cooperate… collaborate in order to systematically heal the world, returning the corruption into the Tree of Life, forever locking Ahriman back into his prison.

[Bornindamecca]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

I love the way this looks. Ubisoft is putting out some quality product.

[Flawless]

Re: New Prince of Persia game (360/PS3/PC)

Pre-E3 2008: Prince of Persia Preview
The return of the future king.

Forget the Prince of Persia you once knew. The Prince of the last generation of game consoles lived in a static world. He went from one obstacle to the next and no matter how many times you played the quest, the layout remained the same. Once a saw blade, always a saw blade -- such was the life of a trap in previous Prince of Persias. The new Prince of Persia, built on the Assassin's Creed Anvil engine, is set in a dynamic, open world. The traps you encounter in an area in hour one will be completely different from the ones you come across in hour six. The world continually changes based on the choices you make, bringing considerable replayability to Ubisoft Montreal's upcoming title.

New Screens