Cancelled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake claimed to have been ‘near the end line’

Ubisoft’s remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was one among six initiatives just lately cancelled as a part of a “main reset” of the corporate’s inner construction. In the future after the announcement, which included a promise that extra “player-facing generative AI” was on the playing cards, Ubisoft shares dropped to their lowest worth in additional than 14 years.

Rubbing some salt within the wound, Reddit posts claiming to come back from a developer who labored on the undertaking say that “it was near the end line.” The redditor, posting below the identify SocramVelmar, wrote “Though the sport was near launch, improvement stopped all of the sudden resulting from inner uncertainty and considerations round layoffs. With issues unclear, a number of the workforce moved on to different studios that supplied extra stability.”

If it was near completion, chances are you’ll be questioning, why not put in slightly extra effort to get it out the door? As SocramVelmar defined, “As a result of ‘shut’ does not all the time imply ‘prepared.’ At that time the query is not how a lot time or cash was already spent, it is how way more it will take to ship one thing the writer is prepared to face behind. Typically management decides stopping the bleeding is cheaper than releasing one thing they don’t seem to be assured in, even when it hurts and feels wasteful from the surface.”

Associated articles

Principally, a failure’s going to be worse for Ubisoft than reducing its losses even late within the manufacturing. Not simply financially, however reputationally—and these days there’s an expectation of post-launch help which means even a “completed” recreation is not actually completed, leading to a good better funding of sources.

SocramVelmar additionally says video games like The Sands of Time struggled to discover a place in Ubisoft’s present course. “There’s been a giant push towards giant, open-world experiences for some time,” they wrote, “and that makes it tougher for tighter, linear video games to seek out oxygen, even once they’re properly cherished. Sands of Time was all the time about pacing and movement, and that does not all the time line up with the place priorities appear to be.”

Whereas the remake seems like it will have preserved a good quantity of the 2003 recreation, there would even have been modifications. “One mechanic we actually appreciated was treating time much less like a rewind button and extra like one thing that leaves a hint. As a substitute of simply undoing errors, you could possibly briefly work together with echoes of your previous actions. For instance, you’d set off a short while window the place a previous model of you finishes a bounce, holds a lever, or distracts an enemy when you transfer ahead.”

As SocramVelmar describes it, “you were not fixing errors, you had been cooperating with time itself.” Which seems like an intriguing twist on the unique. Disgrace we cannot get to see it. “Doubt there shall be any leaked supply code,” SocramVelmar says, “no less than not from me.”