History of Prince of Persia games: Turning back the Sands of Time on the popular series

Calling the Prince of Persia series influential is an understatement. Over the years, Prince of Persia titles have not only built a loyal fanbase, but have also changed how games look and feel today. Needless to mention, Ubisoft’s popular series was also the backbone and inspiration behind the massively popular Assassin’s Creed titles of today.

Ahead of the franchise’s reawakening with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and an expected remake of the older Sands of Time series, here’s a look at how the games have evolved over time and what made them so popular in a period when video games themselves evolved from 2D to 3D.

Prince of Persia (1989)

While many remember the Sands of Time trilogy as the beginning of the series, the first game was actually Prince of Persia (1989), a title that was developed for the Apple II computer, and would go on to have a trilogy of its own. Prince of Persia was based off of literature like the Arabian Nights stories, as well as games like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Adventures of Robin Hood.

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Setting the titular unnamed protagonist on a journey against time to defeat the evil Grand Vizier Jaffar, the 2D gameplay used rotoscoping for its fluid animations. Designer Jordan Mechner even used videos of his brother as reference for the game’s animation, giving in-game animated characters a realistic feel that was simply missing in games at the time.

The game’s legacy speaks for itself. Apart from a 2007 remake that brought the title to many more platforms decades later, fans of the original game even discovered that they could reverse engineer the files of the game on MS-DOS to modify in-game levels, giving birth to early instances of the modding culture that is popular in open-world games like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered and the Grand Theft Auto series today.

Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame (1993)

Of course, Mechner’s massively popular title improved with a sequel four years later. Now available for the Macintosh as well as MS-DOS and Super NES, Prince of Persia 2 opened the series to a lot more gamers. Following the events of the original game, the game follows the unnamed prince as he tries to return to the Persian empire to defeat the evil Jaffar, who has now taken his appearance to falsely rule the kingdom.

Prince of Persia 2 was criticised for its save-game aspect, which would become better in later versions, but was described by many as an enjoyable title that out-did the original in every way. Earning praise from everywhere, the game even won the ‘Action Game of the Year’ award a year later in 1994. However, the game was still very different from today’s titles – being a horizontal scrolling experience.

Prince of Persia 3D (1999)

The third instalment in the series received mixed reviews and was almost universally considered the weakest game in the series, but looking back, it does add up. This was because the 1999 title was the very first 3D game in the series. Built for Windows computers, Prince of Persia 3D put the players in the Prince’s shoes unlike previous iterations. Players could now follow the character from his perspective, which offered a unique sense of immersion in the game.

However, the new camera movements, rough character models were not completely optimised in time for the game’s release. There were also other issues like sluggish controls that made the title a hard-sell even for players who were excited to try the newly imagined games. Fans of the series even blamed minimal involvement from original developer Jordan Mechner to be a cause of this. These issues would result in two major decisions – the plot of the series coming to an end as a trilogy, and developer and publisher Ubisoft acquiring the series.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003)

In 2003, the Prince of Persia series would be rebooted with another 3D game, now made by Ubisoft. The new game would feature a new storyline, still featuring an unnamed Prince. Apart from the usual Arabian setting, many new parkour elements would be added to the game.

The game would also introduce the Sands of Time as well as the Dagger of Time, elements that could control the flow of time and when used, could affect the gameplay, rewinding time, and helping players retrace their paths to undo mistakes. This would go on to become a key element of the gameplay. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time would go on to put the series on the map again, today recognised by many as one of the greatest video games of all time.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (2004)

Just a year after the launch of Sands of Time, Ubisoft would hit gamers again with the second title in the series – Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Considered the best overall game in the entire series to date, Warrior Within took a break from the Arabian settings of the series, to a remote island the Prince visits to escape a deadly beast called the Dahaka. The Dahaka has been tormenting the Prince for meddling with time during the events of Sands of Time and has forced the Prince to far-away lands in the search for a way to beat it. The game also featured a darker, survival-horror tone that was a breath of fresh air for fans of the series.

The gameplay also added many more elements. This included an open-world that could be explored when not on a mission, more parkour and free-running moves, a dual-wielding ability that allowed the Prince to carry multiple melee weapons for unique combos, and a non-linear game world that only made more sense as the story progressed. The title also featured easter eggs across the game, finding all of which offered an alternate, canonical ending to the story.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (2005)

The final game in the trilogy would come a year later with Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. Following the aftermath of Warrior Within, the game followed the unnamed Prince as he comes back to Babylon and learns how destroying the sands in the last game has brought back the evil Vizier from Sands of Time to Babylon. An accident also leads to the Sands corrupting a part of the Prince himself, giving him a second, darker personality, and forcing players to juggle between both versions of the character, each with their own pros and cons, to progress through the story.

The Two Thrones is canonically the last game in the series so far, with the next game actually being sort of a prequel. The game received good reviews and was instantly popular among the now larger fanbase of the series, selling over 1.5 million copies within a month of release.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (2010)

Five years after the Sands of Time trilogy came to an end, Ubisoft released a fourth game set in the same continuity. The Forgotten Sands takes place between the events of Sands of Time and Warrior Within, and focuses on a very different story where the titular Prince must rescue his possessed brother Malik from evil djinn Ratash.

The game used a new ‘Anvil’ engine for more in-game enemies as well as more advanced ragdoll physics. Met with positive reception, The Forgotten Sands remains the last title in the series to date, with Ubisoft shifting its focus on the Assassin’s Creed series which had kicked off with Assassin’s Creed in 2007 and Assassin’s Creed II in 2009.

The Lost Crown, and the way forward

Over a decade later, between which Ubisoft only made ports and remakes of some of the games for more platforms, Prince of Persia now returns with The Lost Crown, the first new game in the series since 2010. Unlike the 3D games since Sands of Time, The Lost Crown implements a new 2.5D horizontal side-scrolling gameplay style with modern animation and graphics.

It also follows a new protagonist ‘Sargon’, interestingly the series’ first one to have a name. The game can be purchased for the both the Sony PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, as well as the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Windows and the Nintendo Switch.

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While there is no concrete answer to what lies ahead for the Prince of Persia series, Ubisoft has announced a next-gen remake of the original Sands of Time (2003) game, but it still has no concrete launch timeline. One thing that hopeful fans can count on is that classic elements like the Prince’s signature parkour and multi-weapon gameplay, as well as other elements like the sand monsters could be leveraged very well with the new-gen hardware on modern gaming laptops and consoles. Now, all we need to do is wait for a remake!