What you need to know
- According to a new report, the developers responsible for making this year's acclaimed Metroidvania platformer Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown have been moved to three new games by Ubisoft.
- The news comes a day after another report said Ubisoft broke the team up and turned down a sequel to The Lost Crown, which the publisher later confirmed in a statement.
- Reportedly, most of the team now works on Beyond Good and Evil 2, with a dozen devs contributing to the next Ghost Recon game and another 12 joining a group at Ubisoft Milan making a Rayman remake.
- A remake or reboot of Rayman would be the first new mainline game in the platformer series since 2013's Rayman Legends, though the project is apparently unpopular internally (as is Beyond Good and Evil 2, which is said to be in development hell).
According to a new report, developers from the team responsible for creating the acclaimed 2D Metroidvania platformer Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown have been moved to three other projects. The news comes just a day after another report claimed Ubisoft broke up the group and that a The Lost Crown sequel was cancelled, which was confirmed by the publisher in a statement to Eurogamer.
In its report, Insider Gaming says that the Assassin's Creed maker has shifted the majority of The Lost Crown's developers to Beyond Good and Evil 2 — a sequel to the original 2003 action game that was revived and announced in 2017, but hasn't been seen since and is thought to be in development hell. Around a dozen have gone to work on Project Over instead, which is Ubisoft's next Ghost Recon game. Another dozen have joined the team building Project Steambot, which Insider Gaming claims is a Rayman remake being developed by Ubisoft Milan.
Rayman is a popular adventure platformer series that began with the original game's launch in 1995, though there hasn't been a new mainline release since 2013's Rayman Legends 11 years ago. This report suggests Ubisoft is finally going back to it by making a remake or a reboot, though no other details were mentioned.
A potential Rayman return will surely excite fans of the franchise, but the report notes that the game is "somewhat unpopular" internally, citing the way series creator Michal Ancel "looms over the project" as a consultant. Many at Ubisoft are also baffled by leadership's decision to "invest tens of millions a year" in Beyond Good and Evil 2 given its extremely tumultuous development over the course of the last seven years.
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Reportedly, Ubisoft's choice to send Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown's developers to "other projects that will benefit from their expertise" was made in May after the platformer failed to meet sales expectations. The publisher was hoping the game would sell millions of copies like other big-name Metroidvanias, and although it did review very favorably, the game's commercial performance disappointed. At the time of writing, it's thought that The Lost Crown has sold one million units.
With Ubisoft deciding to turn down a sequel to Prince of Persia: The Long Crown, it's unclear if we'll ever get a new platformer in the series like it. The few workers who are still working on the game say they're "focusing on making the game available to more players," with a Mac release planned for this winter. Fans also have a remake of the beloved 2003 action game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to look forward to, though it's not expected until 2026 — a release window six years after its announcement.
The Lost Crown itself was apparently seen as a "perfect project," with developers appreciating its "relatively straightforward development pipeline" that contrasted with Beyond Good and Evil 2's messier organization. To many, it was a "beacon of hope to create" that was enjoyable to contribute to when burnt out from working on the long-awaited sequel.
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Analysis: Exciting news tinged with uncertainty
While it's exciting to know that there's another Rayman game on the way, it's also disheartening that a sequel to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown — one of this year's best Xbox games and best PC games, and ultimately a victim of Ubisoft's poor reputation — was turned down so that more developers could join the teams behind it, the next Ghost Recon, and Beyond Good and Evil 2. The latter project seemingly isn't even going anywhere, and with the Rayman remake reportedly unpopular internally, I'm not confident it will come out either.
At this point, I'm just hopeful that development on the remake goes as smoothly as it can, and that Ubisoft is finally able to clean up Beyond Good and Evil 2 and make its creation less turbulent, too. Based on what was said in Insider Gaming's report, however, I'm far from confident.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is available for $39.99 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One systems, Windows PC (via Steam or Ubisoft Connect), PS5, PS4 systems, and Nintendo Switch. On PC, it's also available to play on Ubisoft's Xbox Game Pass-like gaming subscription service Ubisoft+.
