Prince of Persia's Innovations Haven't Been Noticed, Says Developer

The Prince of Persia franchise is one of the oldest and most popular platforming series of games out there, with its roots tracing back to 1989, when we followed the adventures of the first Prince. Now, in 2008, the franchise, which was bought by Ubisoft, has seen its latest installment, a completely fresh and new Prince of Persia game.

After the Sands of Time trilogy, Ubisoft thought that a fresh vision on the franchise was required in order to make the series more interesting in the eyes of people who hadn't played the first games. With a completely and different art style and with some very intriguing gameplay mechanics, the new Prince of Persia was received quite well by critics, who praised it for the compelling story and the great levels, but considered that the game almost played itself, and didn't really make the player believe that he was in control.

Ben Mattes, the producer of this game, talked with IGN regarding the innovations the release brought to the franchise, and the fact that most of the reviewers didn't really appreciate them as they should have. Mattes complained that although his game struggled to deliver something new in order to please the public, the level of appreciation wasn't very high.

“For years we've all been reading complaints about sequels and companies churning out carbon copies of proven formulas without focusing on innovation or taking risks. We tried to really embrace this challenge on PoP. We set out to keep a few core fundamentals but to re-imagine everything else, discarding some very well entrenched ideas not only about the brand but also about videogames in general. What surprises me is how little these high level risks seem to be noticed and appreciated as attempts to shake up the industry and push things forward. Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I think perhaps I was expecting a few more virtual pats-on-the-back for our attempts to do something new.”

Although Prince of Persia brought quite a lot of new things, the game wasn't a major breakthrough. Even though the new art style and gameplay mechanics were pretty innovative, it still had glitches and some levels were very poorly designed. Let's hope that the Ubisoft team will do something more innovative with the next game in the series.