It may be the most inclusive Prince of Persia game yet, reflecting a welcome trend for just letting people have fun.
With Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Ubisoft has deftly proved two things that many capital-G Gamers are vocally skeptical about. Firstly, that Ubisoft itself is a powerhouse of creative talent, and not just a bloatware shop. Yes, the publisher has become synonymous with “long”, “bland”, “formulaic”, and other disdainful adjectives. Its flagship Assassin’s Creed franchise, itself arguably a spin–off of Prince of Persia, has seen the games grown to frankly unmanageable proportions, boasting multiple hundreds of hours of gameplay padded out by excessive icon janitoring and copy/pasted environments. However, it seems as though Ubi is serious about righting the ship, and ditching the stifling mandate of content for content’s sake. The Lost Crown is only as long as it needs to be, and is an extremely lovingly designed game to boot.
The second thing Ubisoft has proved is that it is possible to cater adequately to hardcore players who relish a challenge, and the rest of us mere mortals who are time poor, possibly arthritic, and extremely not in the market for having content blocked off by skill filters.
Check the video below to get an idea of how Prince of Persia is catering to all kinds of player, no matter their ability:
There’s an old Dara Ó Briain routine about video games being the only art form that denies access to content based on ability, and the comparative absurdity of a book slamming shut because you can’t adequately describe its themes is as spot on and relevant now as it always was. But things are changing rapidly: more and more games are shipping with story modes, platforming assistance, and even toggles for skipping entire sections if they prove too taxing.
