Usually around this time of year, I think back to some of my favorite games from the previous year and prepare for Game of the Year conversations. Instead, I spent this week angry that one of my favorite games of 2024 just had its development team scattered to the four winds. 2024 is not over yet and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown it has apparently been canceled by Ubisoft's superiors.
Abdelhak Elguess, senior producer on the game, told Eurogamer on Wednesday that “most of the team members who worked on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown “They have moved on to other projects that will benefit from their experience.” And according to Insider Gaming, those projects are supposedly a Rayman game, the next Ghost Recon game, and Beyond good and evil 2 (which has been in development hell since it was first announced in 2008, that's right, 2008).
that is despite The lost crown team releasing a sequel that would have kept them all together. Again, according to the same Insider Gaming report, that sequel was rejected due to the game falling behind sales expectations.
The lost crownA crisp 2D Metroidvania with fluid combat, a great story, and super-adjustable difficulty settings, it wasn't just a critical favorite here at Polygon. It has an 86 on Metacritic and “Very Positive” reviews on Steam. The game reportedly sold a million copies, but apparently that wasn't enough. (Ominous news for Ubisoft Star Wars Outlawswhich has also sold only one million.)
Whose fault is it if the game didn't sell well? Surely not the developers of The lost crownwhich was again critically acclaimed and loved by many of the people who played it. That sounds like a marketing problem, not a development one. So why break up a team of people who already created something great? Building a cohesive and successful team is a great challenge. If Ubisoft's decision makers didn't want that team to work on another Prince of Persia game, that's fine, but why not assign the team to a new project and keep them all together?
Baldur's Gate 3 Executive Michael Douse seems to agree. Douse wrote a thread on X (formerly Twitter) about the failure of Ubisoft's leadership. The lost crownand, in particular, the fact that the game wasn't released on Steam until August of this year. “If it had been released on Steam,” he wrote, “not only would it have been a success in the market, but there would probably be a sequel because the team is very strong. It's such a failed strategy. The hardest thing is to get an 85+ [on Metacritic] game – it's much, much easier to throw one. It just shouldn't be done as it was.
“If the statement 'gamers should get used to not owning their games' is true because of a specific release strategy (below sales),” he continued, “then the statement 'developers should get used to not having jobs' if they do a job.'” “Critically acclaimed game” (platform strategy over title sales) is also true, and that simply is not sensible, even from a business perspective.”
I'm not sure if an older version of Steam would have made a difference for The lost crown or not, but I know that publishing a game in early January is a strange decision. Very few major games come out in that period; I guess that's because most people are busy playing the games they received as gifts over the holidays, and if you can't get a game out before During the holiday season, you'll have to go uphill to attract widespread attention.
Or maybe it was the shadow of the sands of time remake, also in development hell, which led to people being put off by a different Prince of Persia game. After all, The lost crown It doesn't feature the Prince, so if that's what players wanted, they might not have given this game a chance. Or, looking for other explanations, some might look to the accumulation of racist comments in this game's first reveal trailer, which debuted its black, non-Prince protagonist with an original hip-hop song. It's hard to say how much fans affect sales; There is not enough data on that. But I will say that as someone who enjoyed the song and the vibe of the trailer, I have to admit that that trailer doesn't really match the video game. The game's soundtrack possesses this as well, but has a very different soundscape that combines historical and contemporary musical influences. It seems like no one at Ubisoft could figure out how to sell this game, which is stupid and frustrating, because it's incredibly good.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown He deserved better. Their team of developers deserved another chance to continue creating great games together. So as we enter GOTY season, well, I'm still going to be mad about this.