The Prince of Persia has gone rogue! No, I don’t imply that he’s married a Hollywood actress, moved to California, and spilled the royal tea in a tell-all interview with Oprah. I imply he’s starring in his first 2D roguelite. Sizzling off the heels of the collection’ glorious return to type in January’s The Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown, his sword-swinging highness is stepping away from the Metroidvania construction and into the procedurally generated, reside, die, repeat mould of Dead Cells, in The Rogue Prince of Persia. Whereas I’ve solely had a really quick quantity of hands-on time with the upcoming journey, the early indicators recommend that this might effectively be the second dazzling jewel added to the Prince’s crown in lower than the house of a yr.
The Rogue Prince of Persia could not look precisely like Dead Cells – it swaps the latter’s 16-bit sprites for a stylised sheen extra befitting a Saturday morning cartoon – nevertheless it definitely performs like Dead Cells. This could come as no shock on condition that it’s being crafted by developer Evil Empire, the group behind the very good Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania and Dead Cells: The Queen and the Sea expansions. (Evil Empire splintered off authentic Dead Cells developer, Movement Twin). The fundamental construction is identical; throughout every run you discover randomly generated 2D slices of thematically distinct areas – within the case of my hands-on, a sprawling village space and the slippery surfaces of an Aqueduct – slaughtering enemies for gold and looking for the deadliest weapon upgrades alongside the way in which. There are even portal gates to activate as you progress, permitting you to rapidly blink backwards and forwards across the ever increasing 2D map so as to uncover any secrets and techniques you could have missed.
The preliminary enemy sorts additionally appear acquainted, significantly the bolt-blasting archers and bomb-hurling grenadiers that are palette-swapped variations of the foes present in Dead Cells’ opening dungeon areas, and the weapons you’re given to dispatch them with are comparable too. I started my first run in The Rogue Prince of Persia with a main pair of twin blades for close-up assaults and a secondary compound bow for ranged assaults, and subsequently acquired my palms on a spread of swords, javelins, and bladed flying discs to use so as to spectacularly tear by the indignant hordes that stood in my path, accompanied by a propulsive Arabic electro beat.
There are some key variations, although, a minimum of in phrases of motion. The Prince is way extra acrobatic than The Beheaded from Dead Cells, and with a squeeze of the left set off he’s in a position to wall-run in each horizontal and vertical instructions. It’s a traditional steep-surface sprinting fashion that’s straight out of The Sands of Time collection, and it serves a number of functions. Not solely is it helpful for reinforcing up to hard-to-reach areas or to scurry over an enemy’s head and open them up to a shock assault from the rear, however mastering the use of the Prince’s extra fleet-footed feats is crucial so as to efficiently steer across the optionally available problem rooms. I got here throughout two of these trap-filled tombs throughout my hands-on, and had a blast wall-sprinting previous spinning noticed blades and flipping between spike-lined partitions on my method in direction of triumphantly cracking open a treasure chest.
As well as to his main and secondary weapon assaults, the Prince can also be succesful of delivering a strong kick, and I discovered it very tempting to ‘That is Sparta’ each enemy I might both into lethal pits, or clattering into one another like dopey dominoes. Nonetheless some foes had been immune to my belligerent Gerard Butlering, packing a blue protect barrier that had to be whittled away with a flurry of sword slashes earlier than I might forcefully introduce them to the underside of my sandals.
Every of the Prince’s assaults may be upgraded with varied Medallions as you progress, like poison on your arrows, sticky resin on your sword assaults to gradual the motion of your enemies, and flames on your toes to make your kicks ignite your foes in a blaze of gory. I additionally discovered a sacrificial altar in a single darkish nook of the opening stage that gave me the selection of surrendering 200 of my treasured hit factors in trade for a excessive degree royal saber, which made me pause to briefly weigh up the chance versus the reward.
I finally took the deal, though it subsequently proved to be my undoing once I got here up towards The Rogue Prince of Persia’s first boss, a rampaging purple minotaur that greeted me on the finish of the Aqueduct space. Regardless of my finest efforts to wall-run over the waves of jagged rock that surged in direction of me after every of the boss’ ground-pounding assaults, and my use of the Stealth Assault blade improve to teleport behind the beast to sneak in a couple of sword slashes earlier than it might spot me, my already depleted well being bar wasn’t strong sufficient to go the space. Ultimately the hulking monstrosity mino-tore me to shreds, at which level I respawned on the sanctuary hub space, raring to go once more.
Sadly that’s the place my demo got here to its finish, nevertheless it was definitely a fantastic deal of enjoyable whereas it lasted. There’s no query that Dead Cells walked in order that The Rogue Prince of Persia might wall-run, however though its fundamentals could also be acquainted, the larger freedom of motion and hanging artwork fashion of Evil Empire’s new journey has definitely made me eager to discover it extra and experiment additional with its varied weapons and buffs. The excellent news is that it’s not lengthy till we will all get our palms on an a minimum of partially full model of the regal roguelite, since The Rogue Prince of Persia is ready to enter Steam’s Early Entry on Might 14. Prepared your scimitar, as a result of this one appears prefer it could possibly be effectively value a stab.
Tristan Ogilvie is a Senior Video Editor at IGN’s Sydney workplace. He hardly ever tweets, however when he does he may be discovered here.