Stop While You're Ahead

Anyone who reads this blog regularly could probably guess I’m a huge fan of the Prince of Persia series, then again, you two probably already knew that before I started this blog. I think I've written more articles about the last game than any other game on here. So naturally when Ubisoft announces something outrageous like the next PoP game being a continuation of the Sands of Time trilogy, instead of the story they ended with a cliffhanger less than a year ago, I’m going to rant about it.

A small part of me is excited if only because the characters from the Sands of Time trilogy are awesome and I’ve spent so many hours in that universe, but the rest of me knows that story is over. Ubisoft pushed their luck by giving Sands of Time a sequel when it was clearly a standalone story and somehow managed to tie it all together beautifully by the end of the third game. I sincerely doubt they’ll be able to pull off a fourth game with the same kind of grace and care that they gave Two Thrones. Hell, they almost killed all hope for the trilogy when they made the prince “dark” and angry in Warrior Within.

Then there’s the fact that this game is slated for May of 2010, that means that it has either been in development alongside the last PoP, or it is going to have less than an 18 month dev cycle. I know the two Sands of Time sequels were both made in a year, but they had all the assets from the previous games and didn’t alter an enormous amount of the core gameplay. This game however is probably not going to use a lot of last year’s game seeing as it was cel shaded and significantly different from the other universe.

The last thing that really makes me nervous is May is the same month that the Sands of Time movie is coming out. Based on the trailer, the movie seems to take bits from the entire trilogy, but will mainly focus on the story on the first game. Jordan Mechner wrote it, so it’s probably not that bad, but we’re still talking about a game movie here. What I don’t want to hear is this new game is going to be a movie tie-in because that would just be ridiculous. How could they possibly make a game that is based on a movie that is based on three other games and expect it to be better or even equivalent to the originals? The reason the movies story was changed so much (I imagine) is because games don’t translate directly to movies very well. The same is true the other way, so doing both is probably a recipe for disaster.

I’m always hopeful and I guess I’ll have a better grasp for what is coming once they release a trailer on the 12th.