Prince Of Persia Reveal Is One Of The Most Hated In Video Game History
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is being downvoted on every site by upset Ubisoft fans.
The new Prince of Persia game, aptly titled The Lost Crown, was the opening trailer of the Summer Game Show, which surprisingly (it actually wasn’t all that surprising) gained mostly negative feedback from the game’s fandom. Despite being the latest entry in the seemingly dead franchise, gamers, and Prince fans aren’t really thrilled with the new game—pretty much the same reaction as with the 2008’s Prince of Persia, which ended up being a great game.
According to VGC, the new Prince of Persia game received mostly negative responses from the gaming community, with only 28 percent of positive responses. However, VGC’s report reads that it’s not entirely clear why the game has received such a strong negative reaction, as it doesn’t show any of the typical “triggers”—most of which involve inclusivity—that would lead to a widespread downvoting. Fortunately, we, the actual fans of the Prince of Persia franchise, know why the fandom has reacted in the way that it did.
What most fail to realize, Ubisoft included, is that the average Prince of Persia fan isn’t typically worried about “inclusivity,” since game protagonists came in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Everything we were worried about was whether a particular game would meet our expectations—and it was the fifth and sixth generation of consoles, the ones that didn’t have internet connectivity by default. Hence, games had to ship out complete and of good quality.
2003’s The Sands of Time was one such game. It was an absolute masterpiece of gaming, a love story hidden in an action tale involving treachery, loss, and time manipulation, and it gave birth to the Sands of Time trilogy, which is highly regarded among the fandom. Then, the Assassin’s Creed franchise was born out of a Prince of Persia sequel that revolved around an assassin going on a mission to save the Prince of Persia—which is basically the premise of the recently announced The Lost Crown.
Does anyone else remember the glory days of Ubisoft, the pre-2010s era, when the company’s name wasn’t synonymous with the Assassin’s Creed franchise? The days when the publisher delivered great gaming titles such as Prince of Persia, XIII, Beyond Good & Evil, and Rayman—not the Rabbids. Well, typical Prince of Persia fans do, and they have been calling for Ubisoft to remake the original Sands of Time trilogy for more than two decades. Ubisoft finally agreed but has sidelined the project, resulting in The Sand of Time Remake sitting in development hell for two years now.
Instead of giving the fandom what it wants, Ubisoft continues to tease and deliver something we didn’t actually ask for. So, the fandom’s negative reaction to the new Prince of Persia mostly stems from their grudge against Ubisoft for neglecting the highly anticipated remake. Sure, there are people who genuinely dislike and badmouth The Lost Crown, but we’ll let internet trolls be internet trolls—they’ll play the new game anyway, and most of them will even go to bed with the heavy burden of hypocrisy for actually liking the title.
The truth is that the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown doesn’t look so bad. In fact, it looks quite awesome, and this is coming from a die-hard Prince of Persia fan. The 2.5D platformer looks reminiscent of the first game and the hidden level in the original Prince of Persia: The Sand of Time; the action looks great, and even the selection of music matches the fast-paced gameplay.
The pre-launch period of 2008’s Prince of Persia, a second reboot and an alternative continuity within the franchise, received the same negative reaction, and now, 15 years after its release, it has become a cherished title among the community. As history likes to repeat itself, it’s the same with the new game as well.
