Both the creative director (Bio Jade Adam Granger) and the director (Michael McIntyre) have spoken on the French publisher’s website about the game, which was announced many years ago and is basically going through development hell.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, which was featured on Ubisoft Forward, has officially dropped the word remake from its name, but since it needs to be distinguished from the original in some way, it will continue to be used. Why is development taking so long? Recently, remakes have jumped to a higher level of quality (especially the Final Fantasy VII remake project), and Ubisoft wants to achieve the same.
“The landscape of remakes has evolved a lot since the Sands of Time remake. There have been some big players that have really raised the bar. We made some big changes to the 3Cs (Character, Camera, Controls) and had to prototype to make sure our new controls still felt good with the old gameplay, and sometimes we had to change them,” Granger said. “I think combat is a good example of that. The original combat would feel pretty dated to a lot of players today. Combat in games like Prince of Persia has come a long way in the 21 years since that game, and some of the more recent games, like Dark Souls and God of War, have really elevated the combat skills of even more casual players. This is an area that really needed an injection of modernity,” McIntyre added.
The remake will also make some changes to the story, giving Farah’s character a bigger role than in the original: “Probably the biggest development we’ve done is to make Farah more present. We’re able to add more interactions between her and the prince, so you can get more out of their relationship. They just spend more time together,” says McIntyre. “One of the things I’m very passionate about is modernizing Farah. While she was a great character in the original, I think she lacked agency and depth as a person. So we’re really making her a true companion; she has reasons to be there, she’s a true ally, but she’s also a full-fledged person with a background, wants, needs, desires, and tastes. We really want to make her a great character, even if she’s not playable,” says Granger.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake is being developed by Ubisoft Montreal, as well as the Toronto, Bucharest, Paris and Pune studios behind the original remake concept. The game is scheduled for release in 2026.
