Prince of Persia: Redemption is a canceled Prince of Persia game. We’re not sure when it was canceled, but someone uploaded footage from the game to YouTube eight years ago, and no one noticed until yesterday.
There’s a chance someone actually discovered the Sands of Time and used them to go back to 2012 to upload this video. Then again, it might’ve just been unlisted all this time.
We can see all the signature features of a modern Prince of Persia game: sand, time travel, and lots of wall-running. Combat appears to be fast and diverse, with environmental takedowns and special sand powers. It definitely looks like a Prince of Persia game.
The video’s authenticity was also confirmed by Jonathan Cooper via Twitter. Cooper worked at Ubisoft as an animator, before joining Naughty Dog to animate for Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us 2.
According to Cooper, this video isn’t real gameplay, but a pre-rendered video pitch by then-animation director Khai Nguyen and his team. The same video later inspired a similar pitch for Assassin’s Creed 3.
Sadly, Prince of Persia Redemption was swiftly canceled by Ubisoft for unknown reasons. Cooper surmises it might be because Prince of Persia’s original creator, Jordan Mechner still holds the licensing rights.
“Sadly Ubisoft are generally quicker to cancel Prince of Persia games than others IPs because AFAIK original creator Jordan Mechner still holds license rights so the profit margins are lower,” he wrote in another tweet.
Fans have been waiting for a new Prince of Persia game for almost a decade. Forgotten Sands, the last major title in the series, was released in 2010 to mixed reviews. But there’s a chance they won’t have to wait for very long, as Ubisoft recently registered the princeofpersia6.com domain.
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