To suggest that Ubisoft would ditch the Prince of Persia series just because, you know, the storyline came full circle in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones would be asking too much. He'll be returning through some magical plothole, remake or prequel, and a retail listing on UK retailer Play.com suggests the last idea may be what's on the table.
Blogger Chie stumbled across a listing for Prince of Persia: Ghost of the Past on Play.com, who, unsurprisingly, quickly removed the listing once everyone had discovered it. Thankfully, Chie nabbed a barely-readable screen shot to prove its once-existence, but a little squinting proves it was, in fact, once there.
A look back at the history of the cult series, which is now 20 years old.
I had 'The original Prince of Persia' it was an awesome game, still want to play it today. Didn't know until now, Prince of Persia shares it's birthday with mine :D
One of the best game series's to come out in the history of gaming.
On December 3, Ubisoft will be "re-launching" the Prince of Persia franchise with a new title (simply called Prince of Persia) for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC. The Nintendo DS will be getting its own little adventure as well, in the form of Prince of Persia: The Fallen King. So what about a Wii version?
"The Wii version is non-existent," Prince of Persia producer Ben Mattes told us at an event in San Francisco. "It's just not a platform that we developed this game for."
Mattes told us that since they already had a solid DS development team in place, the portable version simply made more sense.
"We knew we could do justice to a DS version," he explained, "[one] that wouldn't feel like some sort of watered down lame excuse of a port; it would really feel like its own standalone Prince of Persia property. And that was really important to us. We didn't want to do a port on the DS -- we wanted to do a standalone, unique experience that continued the overall story that this new Prince of Persia game is trying to setup."
Still, Mattes doesn't rule out a new Prince of Persia on the Wii.
"I hope that we will see another Prince of Persia game on the Wii," he said. "Because when I [produced Wii Prince of Persia title] Rival Swords, I really liked the way the Prince's movement translated to the Wii controls. I think that it's really kind of a natural fit."
Check back later today for our full interview with Mattes.
In anticipation of the the soon-to-be released next entry, Gamertell is running a 3-part retrospective about the Prince of Persia franchise.
This second part of the series concentrates on the "era of Ubisoft." beginning with the French takeover of the franchise, its leap into 3D and its darker approach to the story.
Part 1 of the series ran earlier in the week and the third part will appear on Gamertell on Friday (June 20, 2008).
This is Prince of Persia not Metal Gear. We don't need retrospectives on every damn franchise.
Midway
Ubi
EA
ThQ
Activision
All seem the same to me. It's like they release the same games. They should all merge into one and suck collectively.
no but this franchise has a long root in the gaming business so if it gets one well deserved. But your right not every series should get retrospectives.
