The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake lives, which is good news, but it’s been handed to another Ubisoft studio.
If you’re scratching your head, wondering “What remake?”, we don’t blame you. Since it was announced in September of 2020, there’s not been a huge amount of fanfare. It was set for a January 2021 release, then a March 2021 release but in February 2021, the official Prince of Persia Twitter account confirmed it was postponed until further notice.
Since then there have been periodic tweets confirming it’s still in development, but today’s announcement doesn’t bode well for the game. That’s not to say the remake won’t ever see the light of day and, as fans of the original time-bending game and its wisecracking protagonist, we do hope it gets an eventual release.
However, Ubisoft have now taken it out of the hands of Ubisoft Pune and Ubisoft Mumbai, and put Ubisoft Montreal in charge of developing the remake. Ubisoft’s statement reads:
“This decision is an important step and the team, building upon the work achieved by Ubisoft Pune and Ubisoft Mumbai, will now take the time they need to regroup on the scope of the game to deliver you the best experience for this remake of al all-time classic, when it’s ready.”
An update on the development of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake pic.twitter.com/8xQpqyPSwQ
— Prince of Persia (@princeofpersia) May 3, 2022
“Regroup on the scope of the game,” is the most telling phrase in the announcement. It suggest that, if development isn’t being restarted entirely, the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake is getting a major rethink. It’s not that Ubisoft Pune and Ubisoft Mumbai are newly-founded, unproven studios; they’ve both delivered multiple titles.
Could those studios have bitten off more than they could chew? It’s possible, though there are plenty of other ways games development can go wrong; Mass Effect Andromeda, for exmaple, ran into problems because EA insisted the use the Frostbite engine, which wasn’t quite up to the job.
We’ll let you know when we hear more but for now, don’t count on seeing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’s remake at this year’s Ubisoft Forward.
