14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft has made it official. A new Prince of Persia game is being developed for the Xbox 360 gaming console from Microsoft, for the PlayStation 3, the good old PC and the Nintendo DS handheld. The game is in development at the Montreal studio that has already created free runner Assassin's Creed and is set to feature some of the free movement already seen in the latter game.
Ubisoft was pretty limited in the scope of the announcement. There was no official name attached to the project and no mention of whether the new game will tie into the already established plot of the previous 3 Prince of Persia games or whether this will be a complete re-imagining of the series. It is said that the same team that did Prince of Persia Sands of Time will be developing the game, and that a "new breed of gameplay" and "brand-new illustrative art style" will be the main strengths of the upcoming title.
It's interesting to note that the DS version of the new game will be a total rework, "specifically designed" for the Nintendo platform and with "an entirely new storyline and new characters". So, it might be that we actually have two Prince of Persia titles in development rather than one.
The announcement from Ubisoft comes after people speculated last week on the meaning of a page on the Ubisoft site that appeared to reference a new Prince of Persia game under the name, translated from Arabic script, of "Telescope". Jordan Mechner, the creator of the series, also prompted speculation by trademarking the name "Prodigy", which was to be used for a computer game. Ubisoft's talk about a new game did not address any of these two previous initiatives. It may be that it was caught off guard by all the speculation and decided it needed to react in some way, but without giving away too much regarding the new Prince of Persia project.
Apparently the launch date for the game is somewhere close to the 2008 holidays so there's bound to be more details regarding the game (or games?) until that time. We'll bring you the news as it surfaces.