How Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Builds on Rayman’s Platforming Legacy 

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown launches tomorrow, January 18, for Xbox One, Xbox Collection X|S, and PC, and is on the market now with a Ubisoft+ subscription or for purchasers of the Digital Deluxe Version. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an journey impressed by Persian mythology and the Metroidvania style, during which gamers step into the boots of Sargon – the youngest member of Persia’s most elite warriors, the Immortals – and courageous the risks of the mysterious Mount Qaf on a journey to avoid wasting the kidnapped Prince Ghassan. Wielding acrobatic parkour talents, mystical time powers, and fluid, combo-driven sword abilities, Sargon discovers a world shattered by a time curse, the place he’ll battle sand zombies, screen-filling monsters, and even alternate variations of himself. 

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, the studio behind Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends – and a few of these video games’ DNA persists in Sargon’s journey, significantly in terms of platforming. Like Rayman and crew, Sargon has a sure rhythm and bounce to his actions that helps make exploration a blast, and loads of his time is spent navigating deviously designed platforming sequences that dare gamers to string their method by way of gauntlets of spikes and traps with more and more much less room for error. To seek out out extra about this connection, and the way Ubisoft Montpellier’s expertise on the Rayman video games helped form Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, we spoke with Sport Director Mounir Radi. 

Rayman Origins, Rayman Legends, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown are clearly very totally different video games, however is it truthful to say the Rayman video games have been a place to begin or reference for The Lost Crown? 

For the platforming facet, sure; not for the fight. These two issues are fairly totally different, however for the platforming facet, the movement, we’re speaking about the way to convey the load of your character and the musicality. Once we are speaking about degree design and the best way you progress by way of ranges, I like to match Rayman and Prince of Persia to musical partitions, and that is the place we used our experience probably the most in mastering the movement of development. 

Some builders have a tendency to construct a sport earlier than a toy, and we took loads of time to make a toy first. Earlier than having Sargon and his animation, we labored with only a capsule. Sargon was, for one 12 months, a capsule – and sure, it was tremendous bizarre! However when you set up a very good weight, a very good movement, and a very good really feel with the capsule first – after which deliver the animation, the VFX, and the background, you may improve this really feel in phases. If it’s the opposite method, you may miss one thing.  

We took loads of time after that to attempt to determine the way to convey Sargon’s weight, and to consider his physicality. The weight, for me, is the entire thing, and we took loads of time determining the lengths of particular animations to convey it – generally it was nearly one body. One body, I swear it! We have been like, “One body! No, take away this body!” We have been leaping, bouncing. And it was super-important, as a result of whereas this method is super-demanding, it pays off ultimately. 

Talking of weight – what do you should do otherwise to speak the load of a cartoon character like Rayman, versus a extra anime-inspired hero like Sargon? What must be totally different about how they transfer? 

, whenever you cope with a personality who has no arms and no legs, you aren’t uncovered to the uncanny valley. Your mind can settle for every little thing; Rayman is utilizing his hair to fly, and that’s OK. However if you end up enjoying with Sargon, you’re in semi-reality. You expect particular issues from his actions. Typically you may trick gamers, however you must do it step-by-step, and use particular references that gamers could know, to allow them to settle for new issues.  

Sargon is an Immortal; he’s half of a particular world-building logic. Even when it’s mythological, individuals have weight, so once we have been working with our animators and VFX group, and even with the 3D fashions, we took loads of time to seek out the proper stability. It’s throughout particular talents, like whenever you parry, if you end up utilizing fancy executions, and whenever you use your Athra Surge talents, that you simply attain the best level of spectacularity, of superheroic capability. Throughout this, we herald these flashy colours, which is our strategy to point out that you simply simply unleashed a brilliant capability, and also you carried out it the proper method – as a result of these usually are not one thing you may carry out and not using a problem. To carry out an execution, you must parry; to carry out an Athra Surge, you must construct up your gauge. 

So we used combating video games as a reference, like Tremendous Smash Bros. or Avenue Fighter, as a result of in these video games, there’s purity within the stability between every assault; one assault, one perform. That’s why there’s one button in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown for attacking. 

Musicality within the Rayman video games and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is one thing you’ve spoken about beforehand, with the concept that platforming has a transparent rhythm. How does that have an effect on the form the extent design takes? How do you discover a beat that works persistently?  

It’s about foreshadowing the trail for the gamers. We used the digicam to make sure that the trail is super-readable, and made certain that the blocking parts of degree design current a particular selection. Think about that you simply’re on the bottom and you must go upward; in some video games, you’d soar thrice to rise three ranges, so it’s hitting the identical button thrice – pam, pam, pam! The identical button triggers the identical sound, the identical animation, the identical VFX. That may trigger fatigue, and we tried to handle this fatigue – to deliver brief notes, lengthy notes, and to make sure that gamers have the power to create a partition.  

Degree design provides other ways to create totally different partitions, and it includes loads of iteration, as a result of generally you have got friction.  Wwhen you see individuals being uncovered to a problem for the primary time, and you already know that they’re within the zone, and they can move the problem, that implies that you bought it proper. That implies that you took sufficient time to coach them earlier than, in order that they might take up the mechanics – and that now, with their reflexes, they’ll predict the trail. They’ve the power to remain within the movement. 

One clear callback to the Rayman video games is the Xerxes Cash, which echo the Cranium Cash in Rayman Origins and Legends. They float in midair near hazards that may typically be very difficult to navigate, and gamers needn’t solely to seize the cash, however to land safely as a way to declare them. Have the builders all the time had that affinity for this type of very tight “splatforming,” or is it one thing that developed over time? 

It was proper from the start. Once you’re speaking about exploration, persons are free to experiment with totally different talents on this world. So generally, when you have got a particular path and also you give gamers some instruments, you can’t management how they beat that path, even when there’s a particular problem. By providing them Xerxes challenges, we have been extra in management. We have been saying, “you must beat it like this, to play it like this, as a way to play as meant.” That was our strategy to get gamers to play particular notes in a spot the place they’re conscious of the composition. They will use the identical assaults, they’ll use the identical amulets, they’ll use the identical talents to progress, however once we use Xerxes challenges, we’re telling our gamers to play with these particular situations or parts. 

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has just a few superficial similarities with Rayman in phrases of fight – the texture of the aerial slam assaults, for instance – however The Lost Crown’s fight is way more elaborate and responsive, in a method that’s uncommon even for Metroidvanias. How did that new method take form? 

At the beginning, earlier than even going into the Metroidvania style, we needed it to be a Prince of Persia sport. In Prince of Persia, whenever you enterprise into the world and battle towards enemies, colliding with enemies is just not a hazard. In loads of Metroidvanias, enemies are obstacles: when you contact them, you’ll take successful. However that was not what we needed to realize right here, as a result of for me, Prince of Persia is about experimentation.  

Within the earlier video games, and even within the Sands of Time trilogy, the choreographic facet of the fight was animation-driven: You press a button, you execute an animation. Typically it’s a flowy animation and an execution, however there’s a stability between execution and spectacle. To ensure that this new choreography is within the arms of the participant, we needed to make sure that the sport is super-responsive. So the choreographic facet is again, however now it’s the participant doing their very own choreography with the toolsets we give them. 

This can be a new method, and one meant for equity – but in addition as a result of if a participant makes use of a defensive mechanic like a parry, dodge, or perhaps a soar, it may cancel any animation. And that was the start, as a result of that is much less a vertical method to sport design, and way more of a horizontal method to sport design: Give them toolsets, amulets, and particular talents, and so they can compose their very own playstyle. I believe that’s half of the legacy of Prince of Persia, of respecting gamers’ cleverness. That is authored gameplay, and gamers are free to compose, to create, to construct their very own choreography.  

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown launches on January 18 for Xbox One, Xbox Collection X|S, and PC – and gamers with a Ubisoft+ subscription, or who buy the Digital Deluxe Version, can begin enjoying Sargon’s journey straight away. Secrets and techniques and hazard abound all through Mount Qaf – together with loads of alternatives to push your fight and platforming abilities to the restrict – so get able to discover, battle, and see simply how warped a time-cursed mountain citadel can develop into.