The brief appearance of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake during the Ubisoft Forward conference certainly made fans happy, since they got a commitment from the publisher on the release year: 2026.
Following that brief teaser, Ubisoft shared more details on the long-awaited game in an interview published on the official blog. The Creative Director and Game Director explained that the project is taking so long partly because other game remakes (likely a reference to Final Fantasy VII, first and foremost) have raised the quality bar.
Bio Jade Adam Granger: The landscape of remakes has evolved a lot since the first inception of the remake of Sands of Time. There have been some big players that clearly redefined the bar. We made some big changes to the 3Cs (Character, Camera, Controls), and had to build prototypes to make sure that our new controls still feel good with the old gameplay, and sometimes we need to change them.
Michael McIntyre: I think combat is a good example. The original combat, for a lot of players today, would feel quite dated. Combat in games like Prince of Persia has advanced a lot in the 21 years since that game, and certain recent games, like Dark Souls and God of War, have really elevated even more casual players’ competency in combat. It is an area where modernity really needed to be injected.
The developers also said one of the main improvements from the original game’s story is that Farah will be more present throughout the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake.
Michael McIntyre: Probably the biggest development that we’ve done is to make Farah more present. We’re able to add more interactions between her and the Prince, so you can get more from their relationship. They will simply spend more time beside each other.
Bio Jade Adam Granger: One of the things that’s very dear to me is modernizing Farah. While she was a great character in the original, I think she lacked agency and depth as a person. So we really make her a true companion; she has reasons to be there, she’s a true ally, but also a full-fledged person with a background, wants, needs, desires, and tastes. We really want to revamp her as a great character, even if she’s not playable.
As a reminder, Ubisoft Montréal is being supported by the Toronto studio as well as other studios such as Bucharest, Paris, and Pune. While they wait for this remake, Prince of Persia fans can check out the progress of the roguelike spin-off that launched in early access a couple of weeks ago.
