The Prince of Persia franchise resurfaced after a 13-year break in 2023, but not with a mainline entry. Ubisoft brought forth Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown as a brand-new 2.5D experience that tells the tale of a warrior attempting to save a kidnapped prince. While the title was widely well received by fans and critics alike, it seems sales numbers have not been up to Ubisoft standards.
A new report says that the development team has been disbanded and sequel plans have been canceled. The information is from games journalist Gautoz, who is sourcing multiple developers at Ubisoft Montpellier, the studio behind Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (via resetera).
"I"ve heard and read "It was the best game production in my entire life" three or four times in a single week-end while getting informations on the game"s dev," says Gautoz in a social media post. "One after the other I was told it was seen as a beacon of hope to create and a safe space for people that were burnt out by [Beyond Good and Evil 2], the team has been disbanded by Ubisoft."
It"s unclear if disbanded in this instance means the development team has been reassigned to other projects within Ubisoft or let go from the company entirely, but the former is more likely.
For those unfamiliar, Ubisoft"s Montpellier wing is the studio behind the Rayman franchise of platformers since 1995, with its most recent mainline entry being Rayman Legends from 2013. It also developed the well-received Valiant Hearts series of World War 1 games.
The report continues on to say that while the team had attempted to greenlight a sequel or at least expansions, less than ideal sales of the game had made Ubisoft reject those proposals. Bizarrely, "higher-ups" at Ubisoft had also suggested that a sequel could cannibalize long term sales, per the report.
Even if the report turns out to be inaccurate, the Prince of Persia series is not in a good place at Ubisoft right now. The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake that was announced in 2020 was finally delayed into a complete remake in 2023, even going so far as to swapping developers completely. No release window has been announced for the restarted project yet.