We all remember the old, legendary Prince on ancient computers. Back then, they were "fierce" machines, but strong enough for such games. The first Prince was playable in DOS. Since then, the graphical advancement has been enormous. The original game was released in 1989, and it reached Europe two years later. It was published by Broderbund. After several sequels and changes in development studios, the rights to the series were taken over by Ubisoft in 2001, which remains the main holder of the franchise.
Ubisoft did a great job — it’s hard to imagine a collection of games without at least one installment of the Prince of Persia series.
Particularly striking to me was The Sands of Time, developed by Ubisoft Montreal. The game was released in November 2003 (not 2008) for GBA, PS2, GameCube, Xbox, and Windows. It was a sort of reincarnation of the series created by Jordan Mechner, who actively participated in the development — from the script to consultations.
Inspired by the announcement of a remake for 2026, I decided to reminisce about why this game was special.
We take on the role of the unnamed Prince of Persia. Was it an identity crisis? Who knows — what matters is that he was of noble birth. :)
For its time, the game was far ahead of the competition – it brought something new, fresh: acrobatics, parkour, combat, and incredible time manipulation mechanics.
The real treat was running on walls, jumping over chasms, and acrobatic fights with "backflips," which gave the impression of skill – even though you were often on the brink of defeat.
All of this elevated the game to the skies – in just one year, 2.4 million copies were sold.
After you obtain the Dagger of Time, the game becomes even deeper. You can rewind time by about 10 seconds, correct missed jumps, or save yourself in battle. By collecting Sand of Time, the dagger fills up, which you can then use in crucial moments. Time was not only used for rewinding — you could slow it down or completely stop it, depending on the situation.
For that era, the prince had almost 780 animated movements, which was revolutionary. The movement was extremely fluid, almost as if you were playing at 120 fps — running, rolling, jumping, wall running...
The enemies were mostly zombies that you slowed down to defeat them more easily.
The atmosphere was magically mystical. The graphics were somewhat blurry, but not in a negative sense — the locations felt like you were in a dream. At the same time, a sense of loneliness dominated — after cutscenes, you are left alone, faced with enemies and traps.
For me, The Sands of Time is the best part of the series. But how much did that game influence the development of the Assassin’s Creed franchise?
Namely, Assassin’s Creed originated from a project to develop a sequel to Prince of Persia, codenamed Prince of Persia: Assassins. That project later evolved into a completely new and extremely successful franchise. The influence is evident – especially in parkour, which was even more advanced in the first AC.
Ultimately, those who played know how special that experience was and what "wow" effects they experienced for the first time – not even suspecting that a new franchise would soon emerge that continues to this day.
Will the remake coming next year be a hit? We’ll have to wait and see.
