It has been awhile since we last flipped, swung, wall-ran, and sliced our way through a Prince of Persia game. In fact there hasn’t been a POP game to hit any of the current gen consoles.
The closest fans could come to experiencing a POP game was Assassins Creed. Well the wait is finally over with a new POP game being announced and a plethora of new details being unearthed by Ubisoft.
The first and most important–this will be a new POP game with the only ties to the old POP titles being the setting and nothing more. The Sands of Time are gone, and this new Prince isn’t exactly royalty either. He’s a wander who gets involved in a colossal struggle between two warring gods. Primarily this new Prince will be charged with cleansing the world from the dark god’s creeping presence. Think of it as a reworking of the mechanic in Okami, but more in realtime.
But to do this the Prince will have to battle and hit away at armies of new enemies. Fans of the series will be happy to hear that the combat is taking more of a nod from the original POP on the Xbox. Encounters will be one-on-one, allowing the team to craft a truly unique battle system which is both rewarding and exciting to use. Forget fighting multiple enemies.
The bigger change though is that this POP is going to have some free roaming elements. Players are going to be able to choose how they approach their goals and which ones they want to tackle first. Basically, it is an open world which is a huge departure from the previous and incredibly linear POP experiences.
Overall, this POP game looks like it is shaping up to be the change the series needed. The previous POP games were great but the themes and combat were getting stale after the third iteration. This new direction, graphic style, combat, and open world are just what POP needs.
[Via Next Generation]
