Prince of Persia Has Lost Players to God of War, Says Ubisoft

The animation director for Prince of Persia says the game’s suffered from a migration of players away from it and to the God of War series, and says his game’s tamer visuals, particularly death animations, are the reason why.

“When we make questionnaires and we ask, ‘what did you play in the past?’ The answer’s ‘Prince of Persia’. ‘What do you play now?’ ‘God of War’. ‘Would you play Prince of Persia again?’ ‘No, it’s not hard enough’,” Jan-Erik Sjovall told CVG. Sjovall thinks gamer bloodlust also plays a role. Asked why players switched over since the 2008 Prince of Persia reboot, he told CVG: “Partially maybe the animations – the death animations.”

Sjovall says the upcoming Forgotten Sands will try to reclaim the difficulty and violence of Prince of Persia‘s Sands of Time trilogy. “So the idea was clearly that we’d try to bring our old audience back, but also we’re winning a new audience,” Sjovall said.

But it sounds like Ubisoft’s drawn a line, and won’t copycat blood and gore just because it’s part of God of War‘s appeal.

“A lot of people ask, ‘will you have gore in the game?’ … We want to have interesting fight sequences in there but not indulge in the violence like God of War does. We want to keep it interesting so the acrobatics, the story and the whole look are all supporting each other and people go, ‘yeah, I want to play that game’.”

God of War ‘Pinched Prince Of Persia players’- Ubisoft [CVG]