Ubisoft is bringing back the Prince of Persia franchise, but not in the way you think. The newest entry in the long-running series is no longer going to be an action-adventure, third-person platformer with dynamic combat and an exotic story. No. Instead, Ubisoft is reviving the franchise with as a multiplayer VR escape room experience for VR arcades.
The funny thing about it is that Ubisoft originally didn’t want people to know about Prince of Persia: The Dagger of Time. A keen gamer spotted the trailer while browsing through the YouTube app on his home console, but Ubisoft quickly took it down after originally publishing it on August 10th, 2020. A gamer screen-capped the U.S., version of the trailer before it was taken down.
However, Ubisoft also uploaded the trailer to their European YouTube channels, and that version of the trailer is still available to the public.
You can check it out below, featuring live-action actors and a preview of what the gameplay might be like in the upcoming VR experience.
As expected, the wielder of the dagger in the trailer is a woman who has to conveniently save a pudgy and bumbling male. Those who saw the trailer rightfully downvoted it.
If you were expecting a masculine representation of the series you expected too much.
This is Ubisoft we’re talking about here, where they have a Diversity & Inclusion department, where they promised to remove “toxic behaviors”, and where they mandated diversity and inclusion workshops for their developers.
(Thanks for the news tip Magnum Martell)