I’m not the type of player to throw away their controllers when they get frustrated, but there were a few notable games that got me close: Dark Souls’ fight with Knight Artorias, the ice caves in Spelunky, and a few of the later bosses in The Binding of Isaac for moment had me throwing my gamepad into some nearby drywall. The Rogue Prince of Persia is the latest entry on this list – it’s one of those enduring roguelikes that starts out feeling impenetrable but gradually sinks its hooks into you until you’re helpless against the call of another run.
Rogue Prince of Persia will feel familiar to anyone who played Rogue Legacy, Hades or Dead Cells – not surprising given that developer Evil Empire took over the ongoing development of Dead Cells when Motion Twin moved on to their new project . Now, the studio has partnered with Ubisoft to produce a rogue-like game set in the world of Prince of Persia, and it just launched in early access on Steam.
Playing as the eponymous prince, your task is to save Persia from the invading Huns, who have crossed the country’s borders and captured the capital. After recklessly setting out to defeat the invaders alone, the prince is saved by the power of his magical bola, which rewinds time to prevent him from ever dying.
Each playthrough in The Rogue Prince of Persia takes the prince through the same series of procedurally generated levels. Although the layouts are always changing, there are branching paths and landmarks that can reliably be found in the same general areas on every run. There are alternate paths to unlock and characters to find, as well as a range of new weapons and power-ups to forge back at camp with the help of friends like Sukhra the Forge-Sage and the mysterious Paachi.
The hand-drawn art style of The Rogue Prince of Persia lulled me into a false sense of security when I went on my first run. Like Ubisoft’s recent collaboration with Netflix’s Rainbow Six Smol, the characters and enemies are cartoony and colorful, and I imagined it would be a step down in difficulty from games like Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy. It’s not. While there are no bottomless chasms and spiked hazards, and the spinning blades aren’t instantly lethal, it’s a tough challenge for anyone who, like me, hasn’t honed their platforming reflexes to a sharp edge. I’ve made it to the first boss, General Berude the Unstoppable, a few times and she’s destroyed me every time so far.
Sometimes the punishment has been unfair: I’ve jumped vertical passages with hidden dangers at the bottom that I couldn’t see until it was too late to avoid them, and there’s a particular type of enemy that lands on top of pillars that seems to be able to reach out and hit me even when I think I’m giving them a wide berth. Battles can become difficult to read when multiple enemies pile up and several are supported by shields (the kind you may remember from Dead Cells).
While I’m on the subject of complaints, I think the audio feedback could be improved a bit. The music and ambient effects are quite nice, but weapon hits feel too muffled in the mix – the broadsword and two-handed crest in particular need a soft tunk sound when I hit, not timidly whistle it is currently there.
Those complaints aside, however, The Rogue Prince of Persia shows a lot of promise. There are currently six different biomes to explore, and they all feel remarkably different. The village of Zagros, level one, consists of wobbly wooden platforms and passages carved into a ravine. However, now that I’ve unlocked the Hun War Camp, I can choose to start my run there instead – it’s a similar environment, but populated with tougher enemies and potentially more valuable rewards. I can then head to the Aqueduct or Academy on my way to the first boss. The Aqueduct is a blue maze of one-way water slides, while the Academy looks more like a puzzle box to me, where I have to figure out how to unlock a central mechanism that seals a large mysterious door.
Each level has story objectives and characters to discover, and they all progress the story back to the camp, where the prince’s allies gather to help him take over the city. In the same way that Hades softens the sting of death by providing new dialogue to discover after each failed run, the prince’s friends offer new insights and advice every time my bola sends me back to start over. There, I can also unlock new weapons at Sukhra’s forge or buy new trinkets from Paachi’s tent, adding new tools to my potential pickup arsenal on the next run.
Rogue Prince of Persia might not be enough to tear you away from Hades 2 just yet, but if you’re a fan of the genre, you should definitely keep an eye on it as it makes its way through Early Access.
