Ubisoft: Prince of Persia 2008 Was Not An Experiment
When Ubisoft announced that their latest Prince of Persia, The Forgotten Sands, would be heading back to its Sands of Time roots, a lot of people took that as a vote of no confidence on their 2008 outing. Admittedly, that was my first reaction.
When we caught up with Ubisoft Montreal’s Animation Director, Jan Sjovall, recently, we bluntly asked him whether the 2008 version was quite simply an experiment.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Sjovall, “I think it was a breakout. It was groundbreaking in a couple of issues. For example, we tried out a couple of new things, like how you deal with error management because you couldn't die; having a second character like Elika; how to break the gameplay up in Prince of Persia between separate acrobatics and fights. So, it wasn’t an experiment, we tried to truly do something new and unique.”
“Maybe it’s being looked upon as an experiment,” he concluded, “but it definitely wasn’t one. We experimented a lot, but it was not an experiment.”
What does that mean for the 2008 Prince? Can we expect to see him return? Sjovall didn’t know and said that decision lied with the powers that be at Ubisoft.
“I really don’t know,” Sjovall responded, “It would be nice to see this. What the plan is, with either the POP 2008 or whether this [The Forgotten Sands] is being brokered into a trilogy, or developing the story of the original Prince any further, I can’t say.”
“We will see what Ubisoft management or the IP/franchise team wants to do with the IP.”