It's been an unfortunate road for the Prince of Persia Remake to this point. What was undoubtedly supposed to be a major highlight of the second Ubisoft Forward event from this past week leaked ahead of the show and was immediately criticized due to how the game's screenshots made it look. Expectations have skyrocketed thanks to other recent remakes like Resident Evil 2 spoiling fans. Thankfully, it appears things are getting better as Ubisoft revealed newer images that are much better looking.
In a recent interview, Ubisoft discusses the criticized graphics and assures fans that Prince of Persia: Sand of Time Remake will be receiving lots of polish ahead of its January 2021 launch. In fact, it was also confirmed that the game runs on the AnvilNext 2.0 engine, the same on that powers Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a surprising admission considering that it looks nothing like the upcoming game and instead looks vastly more dated already.
In actuality, the engine is simply being used as a base, with the tech and artistic direction being reworked completely to better suit the Prince of Persia Sands of Time Remake. Part of this includes a brand new lighting approach and color saturation, something that wasn't immediately apparent in the reveal trailer. However, new screenshots appear to show a brand new build of the game, not shown during the event. The characters look much more detailed and no longer look like wax statues. The colors are more vibrant, shadows are darker, and a faces sharper.
One element missed by many fans is that the reveal trailer and snippets of gameplay were running on an Alpha build of the game. The Remake comes from the Ubisoft India studios, a collaboration from Mumbai and Pune, studios that have each spent years working on the title. Unfortunately, the COVID Pandemic has dramatically slowed development as the developers have been forced to continue working from home like leading to an announcement that was less polished than Ubisoft would have liked. However, with a few more months to go, things are clearly improving, though sometimes first impressions of a game are hard to shake especially when they're negative.
While the graphics debate rages on, many fans are just happy that Ubisoft is bringing the long dormant Prince of Persia franchise back. Last seen as a tie-in experience to the movie, the series has since been left behind, giving way to more open world and live-service style experiences. There's a rising hope that perhaps this remake could signal the beginning of a proper return for the beloved franchise.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake is set to release on January 21, 2021, for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: TwistedVoxel (via Gadgets360)