HomeNewsPrince Of Persia: The Lost Crown
Most Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown devs have moved to other projects, Ubisoft confirm, following report about rejected sequel pitchNo layoffs involved
No layoffs involved
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Ubisoft
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Ubisoft
“Move overHollow Knight,” declared Katharine (RPS in peace) in ourPrince Of Persia: The Lost Crown review, summarising this freshly-honed hunk of POP art as “a deep and challenging Metroid-like with some of the best platforming this side of Moon’s Ori games.” Sadly, for all the plaudits, the game doesn’t seem to have earned sufficient megabucks to justify keeping its development team together. Earlier this week, French journalist Gautoz reported that Ubisoft had disbanded The Lost Crown’s core dev team after turning down proposals for a sequel and further expansions. Speaking to RPS this morning, Ubisoft have confirmed that “most” of the Lost Crown’s dev team have moved onto other projects, while noting that there have been no layoffs as a result.
Find the Gautoz report onYoutube, which is based on conversations with anonymous developers. Beware that it’s in French. And here’s Ubisoft’s statement in full from the game’s senior producer, Abdelhak Elguess.
We know players have a love for this brand and Ubisoft is excited to bring more Prince of Persia experiences in the future.
Ubisoft are in a prickly place at the moment. Back in September, one investorthreatened to organise a rebellionand depose the founding Guillemot brothers in response to disappointing returns on blockbuster games, not leastStar Wars Outlaws. Ubisoft subsequentlykicked back the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows to 2025to avoid another Outlaws-style spongy landing. It’s also reported that the Guillemots and Tencent, who are currently minority shareholders, are consideringbuying the company out. All this occurs against the backdrop of labour action, with700 staff in France striking in response to a return to the office mandate.
Taking a longer view, Ubisoft are one among many larger publishers who are struggling to justify smaller, more eccentric projects such as The Lost Crown, which don’t aim for the whopping revenues currently expected of the triple-As. As Graham has just lamented to me in our Slack, Ubisoft once had more of a track record for oddball B-listers and smaller artisanal curios - games like Driver, the musically minded Rayman reboots, Mario + Rabbids, and Child Of Light. Nowadays, projects of that scope with relatively modest commercial ambitions don’t seem to cut the mustard.
