PAX Australia 2023: Hands on with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

When you use a forward rolled around back in the middle of 2023 the avatar game looked cool Star Wars looks amazing the one game that really caught my eye though was that there was a brand-new Prince of Persia title. The fact that this was not the remake that is still apparently on its way nor was it another 3D entry but back to the 2D roots of the series got me really excited, I love the Prince of Persia series so to see it return to its origins but embracing more modern gameplay aspects I was ready to play it that day. Thankfully Ubisoft were on hand at pax Australia 2023 to showcase Prince of Persia the lost crown via the Nintendo switch and I was very lucky to be able to spend some time with the game.

Now the demo at the show did start off with a story but as there were no headphones provided and it was in the middle of a busy show floor, I couldn't hear anything so I skipped over it. The general setup is that you play as Sargon and he is one of the guards of a Prince who comes from Persia. The Prince has been kidnapped and Sargon and the rest of the warriors from the immortals travel to the cursed city of Mount Qaf to rescue him. As this is a Prince of Persia title there is a lot of sword combat, some parkour and a few extra bells and whistles thrown in. I'm not sure if this is part of the game or part of the demo that was on hand, but there wasn't any delay between my starting and my being owned by an enemy. While the Ubisoft Prince of Persia titles were always more action orientated, the original games required a bit more finesse in how you approached combat and it seems that the lost crown is combining both of those elements.

The very first enemy that I encountered I was able to mash the attack button and deal some damage, they got knocked down and when they got back up again a yellow dot appeared above their head. As you can parry attacks the Ubisoft representative that was guiding me through the demo advised if I parried correctly I would be able to instant kill the enemy. Of course, I've messed up and I had to fight them to the death in the normal way, the same happened on the second enemy but by the third I'd gotten the timing down and was able to take them down once they attained to the indicating dot. Later on in the demo some of the dots that appeared were red, which if you've ever played any sort of combat focused game red usually indicates that you can't parry the attack and that is the same here as well.

Of course, combat isn't the only aspect of what makes a Prince of Persia game a Prince of Persia game, parkour or in general terms movement is equally important. Sargon can run up walls and jump off, grabbing poles that then allow him to fling himself up to heights he wouldn't be able to reach on his own. Combine that with a world that has levers to pull to activate new platforms, plants that can be tamed ever so slightly to unlock new pathways, there's a lot going on. The one thing that I noticed pretty early on is that Sargon runs like he's carrying Sherman tank on his back and by that, I mean he doesn't really run. There's no hold this button to run uh the Ubisoft representative confirmed that that is his normal running speed, he just casually jogs around the place. Of course, given that this is a game that's equal parts combat exploration and parkour, zipping around the world may undercut the first two of those aspects.

As it was a time demo, my hands on was limited and eventually the thanks for playing screen appeared, but it's funny I didn't feel like I had spent the full 15 minutes in the game yet. It was literally as I was asking the Ubisoft representative if it was a timed demo, that ‘the thanks for playing’ appeared. I was so in the zone of playing the game, launching arrows to hit faraway switches, activating crystals that would rewind time and even dealing with some fiendishly clever traps that I honestly thought time was just not a thing here.

Prince of Persia the lost crown is set to be released on January 18th, 2024, and while that seems like it's far away it will come around quite soon. The games combination of old school design and layout, combined with the more modern action approach of the series means that there's a lot that fans of the old and new can look forward to. I for one can't wait to get my hands on this game again, and while this time we may not be a Prince, the game seems like it's going to be fit for royalty.