The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake has been in development for a long time–and won’t be out until 2026–but Ubisoft Montreal has a plan to stay true to the original game’s ideas while updating it for modern audiences. Now in full production, senior members of the development team spoke about their goals for the remake.
One of the first challenges was finding the right balance between being faithful to the original game and modernizing it. According to creative director Bio Jade Adam Granger, there was a fine line between keeping “the original recipe” intact and tweaking other parts of the experience.
“We have things that are staying as-is, like the wall run, which is so iconic that we will try to match it as much as we can,” Granger said in a Ubisoft blog post. “The dagger as well. There are core elements of the original recipe that we respect and sanctify: time powers, the tone of the game, and the gravity-defying gameplay. But we modernize stuff like the level design, for example, and really enhance the scale of the world.”
Game director Michael McIntyre added that combat has also been reworked, but signature moves like the overhead vault strike and rolling attacks have been kept so that players still feel like an acrobatic hero.
Addressing the lengthy development cycle–the project was first revealed during the 2020 Ubisoft Forward Showcase–Granger explained that “the landscape of remakes has evolved a lot” in the years since Sands of Time was first announced and that the bar had been raised. Big changes to the characters, camera, and controls have been made, and Ubisoft Montreal had to build prototypes to fine-tune the gameplay further.
“It takes time and craftsmanship and people, which is why we have reinforcements from other studios to help us here,” Granger said.
While the story will remain the same, McIntyre says players will get to experience more interactions between the Prince and companion, Princess Farah. “Probably the biggest development that we’ve done is to make Farah more present,” McIntyre said. 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.
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Prince of Persia franchise, and Ubisoft is celebrating with new content for two of its recent releases. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has more DLC on the way and it will receive its first expansion, Mask of Darkness, in September. Currently in early access on PC, The Rogue Prince of Persia‘s first big update adds a new biome to explore, more weapons to master, and deadlier enemies to try them out on.
