Will the Prince of Persia finally parkour his way back onto next gen consoles?
The internet has been abuzz with talk about the awaited return of Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia series after a trailer for a long-cancelled game was discovered on YouTube. Titled Prince of Persia Redemption, the video from 2012 (?!) had somehow gone undiscovered until a ResetEra user posted it to the popular games forum. The gameplay shows a pre-rendered animation of the Prince wall running, knife fighting, and of course, wielding the power of time to make his way through a crumbling city.
There’s no way to know how the full game would have turned out, but the video itself is pretty cool and the series has sorely been missing for the past couple generations. Check it out here:
While this video alone isn’t enough to be hard evidence that Ubisoft is gearing up for a full fledged new Prince of Persia title, it does come at a curious time. The video was discovered around the same time that a “Prince of Persia 6” domain name was registered.
It’s true that publishers often register domains or trademarks without purpose and merely to cover themselves legally if anything comes up in the future. However, with both these pieces of news about a series which was thought to be dead bringing it back into the public eye, could that mean Ubisoft has something in the works?
What’s even more suspicious is the age of the video. Dating back to 2012, it’s unlikely it was simply left undiscovered for 8 years. What is more likely however, is that it was left private on YouTube all these years and was only recently made public. But for what purpose? Has it simply been long enough now that revealing a cancelled game is of no consequence?
Or could it be that the Prince of Persia Redemption footage was made publicly available now to gauge interest for the series, or perhaps even to stir up enthusiasm again ahead of a future release. Coupled with the domain name and the ever present rumours that a Prince of Persia is in development at some level, these recent developments finally point towards an upcoming reveal.
While Ubisoft hasn’t commented on anything as of yet, this summer is shaping up to be the time for big game announcements. Could we finally see the Prince retake his throne? This is, after all, the series that brought us the hit feature film staring Hollywood heartthrob Jake Gyllenhaal.
