Prince of Persia is back in 2D – but this time he needs rescuing

The Lost Crown honours the adventure series' classic platform-game roots, but now the powers to manipulate time are in the hands of the villain. The game's developers reveal more

Some 34 years after the release of the first game in the series, Prince of Persia is going back to its 2D roots. Jordan Mechner's 1989 Apple II original was a side-on platformer that dazzled with its fluid, rotoscoped animation, but the series is probably now better known for its groundbreaking 3D entries, in particular The Sands of Time from 2003, which gave the Prince the power to slow, freeze or even rewind time. That game was the work of Ubisoft Montreal, but The Lost Crown is being created by a different Ubisoft studio with a strong 2D heritage.

Ubisoft Montpellier has real expertise in 2D platform games, and some 20 members of the team worked directly on Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends in key positions," says game director Mounir Radi, who thinks it's a natural evolution for the studio to try its hand at a more open, less linear game structure. Accordingly, The Lost Crown is a Metroidvania", a style of action game that encourages backtracking across a gradually unfurling world where new abilities unlock new areas to explore. And it introduces a neat new trick: memory shards.