Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an anomaly in every way. For one, the game follows an altogether different protagonist who is not the titular Prince. The game is a Metroidvania 2D action platformer, a first for the franchise. This genre isn't exactly the go-to for major tentpole franchises like Prince of Persia, unless you're Nintendo. The game boasts a distinct art style and structure that sets it leagues apart from the franchise's past in a bold, new direction brimming with potential. 

Our new fresh-faced protagonist is Sargon, the youngest of the elite warrior group - Immortals, tasked with rescuing Prince Ghassan from Mount Qaf - a place ravaged by weird time powers. If that plotline seems vaguely familiar - it is because that is practically the premise for most of the Prince's previous adventures - Warrior Within, Forgotten Sands, and Prince of Persia 3D. Only this time, you play as not the Prince.  What the game lacks in originality concerning plot and storytelling - it more than makes up for it with its rewarding combat, traversal, and ingenious level design. 

The game takes very little time and gets you adjusted to the pace and complexity of combat - throwing a big boss fight your way only mere minutes in. The tools at your disposal are quite simple - a pair of trusty swords, a bow and arrow, and a projectile weapon used for puzzle-solving and combat. The combat, while easy to pick up, gets increasingly challenging facing up against stronger enemy types that rely on speed and range rather than brute force. 

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is one of the best action platformers I have played this side of Metroid Prime and it is truly the comeback fans have been waiting on for the franchise. The game is genuinely challenging and constantly demands the player's mastery over its systems to get through each section. While the game was a thoroughly enjoyable ride from start to finish in its fast-paced 15-hour or so campaign, I couldn't help but wonder exactly why this needed to be a Prince of Persia title. While the game shares much of its DNA with the classic Prince of Persia brand, it could very well stand on its own two feet as a bold, new IP by Ubisoft, because for one, you don't even play as the Prince. On the flip side, because the game is a "Prince of Persia" spin-off, it will be positioned for more success than if it was a new IP. 

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown: Turning the Clock Back 

Gameplay

If you've played a Prince of Persia title before, you know sort of what to expect going into The Lost Crown. Challenging platforming puzzles, time powers, and a Metroidvania structure. The game does not deviate from the tried-and-tested formula except in the most drastic way - by making the game a 2D platformer, much like the original Prince title from 1998. 

The most stunning quality about The Lost Crown is its unabashedly challenging combat that is showcased in the game's many fantastic boss fights. True to its apparent inspirations in Hollow Knight and Ori and the Blind Forest - the game consistently forces players to polish the seemingly simple combat mechanics. At several different points in the game, the game resembled the best bits of a soulslike game - using death as a mechanic for the player to improve with each attempt. In Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown's best moments, the boss fights to resemble its puzzles - demanding the player to learn attack patterns, time their dodges, move in for quick stuns, and parry attacks. 

On Medium difficulty, the game feels sufficiently challenging, leaving enough room for players to experiment with their approach to combat and pull off flashier moves. On higher difficulties, there is little to no room for error as the game demands precision, speed, and a healthy dose of flair. It is recommended that players at least give the default Medium setting a go first to figure out exactly what kind of game they're looking to play. If it's a blisteringly punishing combat experience you're looking for, you might want to crank up the difficulty setting. If you're only looking to enjoy the platformer puzzle side of things, you will enjoy your time with the game even with the difficulty on lower presets. 

Speaking of difficulty, the game is gracious enough to allow players to tweak individual aspects such as parry timing, enemy damage count, and things of that sort. Combined with several accessibility options, including a portal to skip platforming sections entirely, the game is pretty inclusive for players across a wide spectrum. One of the game's most ingenious features comes in the way of a neat almost 'screenshot' feature, allowing Sargon to pin a certain section of the game world to the map screen - allowing players to remember exactly what puzzles will require a future power-up to solve. This essentially eliminates the backtracking hassle, which makes me wonder why other Metroidvania games haven't done it before.

The game's highlight comes in the form of its boss fights, as each one of them will demand the player to use a different kind of approach. While some bosses are lumbering giants that require patience to kill, others will fill the arena with tons of projectiles, asking you to perfect your timing for jumps and dodges. Its this variety, combined with the game's flair for presentation that makes each boss fight memorable, adding tons of replayability off of the boss fights alone. 

The game's main story takes upwards of 12 hours to wrap up in its entirety but I would personally implore players to venture deep into the map, take a few detours here and there to stumble across secret bosses, puzzles, and characters as all of it is ultimately aids your character, allowing you to be stronger for the end-level boss. The game's puzzles made for some of my most frustrating moments in the game, almost in a good way. At several points during the game, I had to rage quit, hoping to come back to the same puzzle hours later with a fresh mind, and hopefully, with a new perspective. 9 times out of 10, that was usually exactly what I needed and I was able to figure out the solution with relative ease. What makes your brain tickle with some of these puzzles is that often what seems like the easiest way to do it is the correct one and you don't need to try and figure out cleverer ways to get the job done. 

All put together, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown might just be the most fun I've had playing a Prince of Persia game since The Two Thrones back in 2005. While Prince of Persia (2008) was impressive with its art style and ambitious design, it just couldn't bring everything together as The Lost Crown could. The result is a game that draws from the series' past to deliver an experience that feels familiar yet fresh.

Story

While I couldn't get enough of The Lost Crown's boss fights and deceptively clever puzzles, I cannot say the story was a positive motivating factor. The game starts relatively well with a fast-paced intro that introduces the game's primary characters and our protagonist, Sargon. But save for a cutscene here and there, not much is revealed about Sargon, or how he came to earn his reputation as the "Rathabar". All I can safely say about our protagonist is that he's good with swords, is entirely too trusting, can rock a sash like nobody's business, and is entirely unimpressed by the fact that he can now manipulate and bend time to his will.

The 12-hour campaign follows a rather cookie-cutter storyline that fails to deliver any meaningful surprises or twists. Each "plot twist" is telegraphed to death and the story simply brushes over what could have been potentially interesting beats. As Sargon, you ride to Mount Qaf with your "Immortal" buddies to save Prince Ghassan (yes, the Prince has a name in this game) from forces looking to do timey-wimey god stuff.  Spliced between the routine "go to this place to unlock this door" quest are interesting dialogues that hint at a much larger scheme, none of which really pay off by the end of the story.

The game's narrative and world-building also have a somewhat jarring quality to them as nobody really seems to take note of the fact that the "Immortals" aren't exactly very human. For one, one of them can shoot arrows like a World War II-era machine gun while one literally conjures storms like he was Thor's second cousin. These feats are regarded as somewhat 'par for the course', which okay, seems like it could have used some more explanation.

In the end, the story is serviceable but nothing to write home about. If it weren't for the exceedingly well put-together presentation and art-style, the game could have really soured on me this story was supposed to be the highlight. 

Graphics, Presentation, and Art Style

The star of the show alongside the gameplay, The Lost Crown's art style and pompous flair have a ton to do with why I came away with a generally positive opinion of the game. The game's stylized action and presentation over photorealism is not only an inspired choice, but the correct one. In my opinion, while I personally loved Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within and The Two Thrones, both those games lacked the charm that Sands of Time and the 2008 soft reboot had in spades. The sort of fable-like quality of Prince of Persia supports the ethos of the world more than the gritty, photorealism approach that the aforementioned games had.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown retains some of the "Arabian Nights"-like quality of The Sands of Time and mixes it with anime-like character title screens, presentation, and flair. The result is a wholly unique creative voice that helps the game stand apart in a big way. I thoroughly enjoyed the Dragon Ball Z-like character face-offs, power-ups, and introduction title cards that the game likes to show off every now and then. It is a real let-down that it couldn't be paired with an equally compelling story and characters. 

The Lost Crown has one of my favourite level designs in any action platformer - a raging sea frozen in time replete with ravaged ships, rogue waves, and thunder strikes. The impeccable design, paired with a masterful score by Gareth Coker (of Ori and the Blind Forest fame) and Mentrix makes for a solid visual and audio package that elevates each section of the game. 

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown: Final Word

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a deceptively complex game that makes you rack your brain - whether it be boss fights or its several platforming puzzles. The game's masterful score and beautiful presentation elevate it from the routine major IP spin-off it could have turned out to be. While the game lacks severely in the story department, it manages to rise above and present a game worthy of the Prince of Persia brand as perhaps the best game in the series since the original Sands of Time trilogy from the early 2000s. 

In all my time with the game, I did not encounter any major bugs, performance issues or other such impedances on my PS5 - making it one of the more polished titles I've played in 2024. Although the game is solid in every way, it is going to be a tough sell for the average AAA gamer at the $60/Rs 4,999 price tag. While I would heartily recommend the game to those who frequently enjoy playing action-platformers, it is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. For those who reserve this kind of price tag for the average tentpole PlayStation Studios release, I would say wait for a sale as the game is incredibly polished and packed with solid content. 

Review copy provided by Ubisoft and reviewed on a PS5.

Sega’s popular Virtua Fighter series is set to make a return, the publisher has confirmed, some 18 years after the launch of its most recent numbered installment, Virtua Fighter 5.

Since then, there’ve been numerous updated releases of Virtua Fighter 5 with 2021’s Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, itself a remaster of the earlier Final Showdown, alongside mobile installments, and even an arcade update for Virtual Fighter 3. What’s missing from the series, though, is a brand-new game.

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What To Expect From Sega’s New Virtua Game

Sega’s new global head of transmedia, Justin Scarpone, has offered some hope in an interview with VGC. "So we have a suite of titles in development right now that fall into that legacy bucket," he explained, "which we announced last year at The Game Awards; Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi."

"And we have another Virtua Fighter being developed," Scrapone added, before covering over the revelation completely, "And then in certain instances, we're also doing animation series, or live-action films to augment that and be part of those roadmaps."

Despite announcing a plethora of legacy game revivals last year - including Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, Golden Axe, “and more” - details remain limited. Sega has shared a little about its Crazy Taxi update -- calling it an open-world, massively multiplayer game that’s “AAA” in scope.

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Sega Teases Shadow The Hedgehog Design In New Sketches

One of the best parts of Sonic x Shadow Generations, released last week, is the wealth of music, stories, and art in the game’s Collection. Acquired hidden emblems throughout each stage can be used as keys to unlock treasure chests throughout the White Space central hub zone and, with a quick shift of location, Shadow can check out his history through some wonderful artwork.

Earlier, Hoshino worked as an artist and character designer on several games such as Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Heroes. Shadow the Hedgehog as a character was first launched in 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2 as the ‘Ultimate Lifeform,’ before appearing in his own standalone game in 2005 where he wields a gun. Hoshino worked as an art director on both projects. With further details provided by Hoshino, the sketches reveal early concepts for not only Shadow’s design, but the proposed weaponry, and bad guy Black Doom.

"I wanted to create a deep, mature story suited to backstory. Shadow was created with the idea of him being a lead character and not just part of a cast of characters," Hoshino tells Eurogamer of working on the Shadow the Hedgehog game, where that promise was fulfilled.

The recent Silent Hill 2 remake will be enhanced for PS5 Pro. Released for PS5 and PC in October, Silent Hill 2 sold over a million copies in its first three days, instantly becoming a huge hit. Soon, PS5 Pro users will be able to enjoy the new version of this classic title.

While some gamers were skeptical of Bloober Team’s ability to remake the classic Silent Hill 2, the game was praised for its combat and atmosphere. With Silent Hill 2 receiving mostly positive reviews from critics, it obtained an average score of 87 on the review aggregate site OpenCritic.

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Bloober Team and Konami Improving The Game

Now, the Silent Hill 2 remake has been tagged as “PS5 Pro Enhanced” on the PS Store, indicating that Bloober Team and Konami have decided to upgrade the game for the launch of Sony’s new console model. Sadly, there are currently no details on how exactly the upgraded version will work.

The current version of Silent Hill 2 for PS5 has both Performance Mode and Quality Mode, enabling gamers to run the game at 1440p with 30fps, or 1080p with 6-FPS, respectively.

Given the scenario, it’s likely that the PS5 Pro Update will make way for greater resolutions and frame rates at the same time. It’s also likely that the Bloober Team will unveil a new Silent Hill 2 update soon to implement these changes.

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When Is The Game Coming To PS5 Pro

What’s surprising about the PS5 Pro Enhanced version of Silent Hill 2 is that it was not properly announced before. Recently, Sony released a list of games confirmed to get PS5 upgrades. While the list included popular titles such as Alan Wake 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Final Fantasy 7, Rebirth, Horizon Forbidden West, and others, it did not include the remake of Konami’s classic horror game.

The PS5 Pro will break cover on November 7, and it has been a very controversial topic since its original announcement. The console is being released at a hefty price of $700 in the US, and it may be even more expensive in other countries.

Despite the new model offering a 45% faster GPU and advanced ray tracing, the high price prompted a discussion about whether the console was worth it, as a normal PS5 would still run the same games and be considerably less expensive.

Steam Game Recording is officially out of beta and available to all users, giving PC, Mac, and Steam Deck players a built-in way to record and share audio and video from their gaming sessions.

The console joins many other ways PC gamers have been able to record their highlights, including as a feature of tools like the Xbox Game bar, Nvidia GeForce, and AMD’s Adrenalin.

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Valve Updates Steam Game Recording

The version of the Steam client is also the first to drop support for Windows 7 and 8 machines, as well as Macs running macOS 10.13 and 10.14 after the company announced the move at the beginning of this year.

After an automatic update, players can start recording manually using a hotkey or set it to trigger automatically, with options to restrict the length, quality, and storage space that Steam can use. Valve says it works with any game, including now-Steam games that enable Steam Overlay to run. The recording is off by default -- users will find its settings in a new Game Recording tab in Steam’s settings.

The company has updated Steam Game Recording with a handful of new features that weren’t there when the beta period began in June, including adding “advanced” export options and the ability to configure game-specific settings. Valve also added Session View, which includes a “Recordings & Screenshots manager with game-specific tags and data.”

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Valve To Stop Releasing New Steam Deck Models Yearly

The Steam Deck will not be getting yearly updates. At least that’s what one of its designers has suggested. But a Steam Deck 2 will likely happen at some point. During an interview with Reviews.org (via The Verge), Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang said, "We’re not going to do a bump every year. There’s no reason to do that."

He explained that he thought it wasn’t fair to users to provide only incremental improvements each year. He said, "...we do want to wait for a generational leap in computing without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck." This aligns with previous statements from Valve. On many occasions in 2023, Valve employees stated that a more powerful Steam Deck would be years away-- late 2025 at the earliest.

Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais explained that part of the Steam Deck brand is that every model can play the same games; Valve doesn’t want to change that until Steam Deck performance gets a significant jump without compromising on the battery life. During the interview, Yang did note that the company is working on a Steam Deck successor.

Users don’t have to take great pains to preserve their Switch to make sure they can still play their favorite games on it years and years from now. Nintendo has revealed in its earnings report that the upcoming successor to the Switch will have backward compatibility and will be able to run games made for the current console.

Moreover, Switch Online will also be available on the Switch 2, which means their saves stored on the cloud will be carried over and they will be able to play NES, SNES, and Game Boy games on the new console.

The company explained that it’s making Switch Online available on the upcoming console because it thinks it’s important for Nintendo’s future to "carry over the good relationship" it has built with its more than 100 million annual playing users to the new device.

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How Will Current Games Work On Nintendo Switch 2

The main way to do this is to make use of the Nintendo Account, which ties a user’s history to one account and allows the company to "maintain a continuous relationship" with them across console generations.

Before the Nintendo Account was introduced, Nintendo had no easy way to carry a user’s history and purchase the next console. "As a result, our relationship with the consumers was interrupted when a new system was purchased," it said.

The company assured to give out more information about the Switch 2 "at a later date," though it didn’t say when exactly. In a recent event where we thought the new console could be launched, Nintendo introduced an alarm clock instead.

Considering its earnings results, it looks like people could choose to wait for the new console instead of buying the current Switch. The company had to downgrade its sales forecast for the fiscal year due to a big decline in console sales compared to the same periods last year.

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Nintendo Switch 2 Launch “Very Unlikely” Before 2025

Nintendo is now “very unlikely” to launch its highly-anticipated Switch 2 hardware this year, a games industry analyst has told Eurogamer. The recent financial results from Nintendo revealed a larger-than-expected drop in hardware and software sales for the current Switch, as the console ages and its release calendar quietens.

The results also passed by without even talking about Switch 2 being shown - and perhaps with Nintendo’s new hardware not due to arrive until sometime in 2025 - for good reason.

During an interaction with Eurogamer, industry analyst Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy Kantan Games, said any mention of the anticipated Switch 2 now would only further hamper Switch 1 sales during the console’s last holiday season.

Almost a year ago, Rockstar Games released the first trailer for GTA 6, which marks the franchise’s first sequel since Grand Theft Auto 5 in 2013. Fans had been hoping that today’s fiscal report for Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, would include a new GTA 6 trailer.

While that did not happen, Take-Two did confirm that the GTA sequel is still on track for a fall 2025 release. While speaking with CNBC, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick acknowledged that some of the company’s old games have slipped from their planned release dates.

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Rockstar Confident About GTA 6 Launch Timeline

However, Zelnick expressed his confidence that GTA 6 would make its release window. Zelnick also emphasized that the extended development of the game is more centered on enhancing the experience rather than removing out.

"In the case of an extraordinary title, for which there are extraordinary expectations, it's not really about bugs, it's about creating an experience that no one's seen before, and Rockstar Games seeks perfection in what they do," explained Zelnick. "And perfection is indeed hard to measure, it is more subjective than objective."

The company noted in this year’s fiscal statements that GTA 5 has sold 205 million copies to date across all platforms, while Red Dead Redemption 2 had 67 million copies to its name.

Take-Two also revealed that Borderlands 4 and Mafia: the Old Country is set to be released during the company’s fiscal 2026, which should fall between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026. The other upcoming games mentioned by name, CSR Racing 3 and Judas, have no specific release window yet.

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Former Developer Claims GTA 6 Will ‘Blow People Away’

Game designer Ben Hinchliffe has worked at Rockstar Games for over 10 years, and he contributed to games like Grand Theft Auto V, Read Dear Redemption II, and Grand Theft Auto VI before parting ways with the company in 2022. During a recent interview, Hinchliffe briefly discussed GTA VI, saying he believes the game will “blow people away” and be a smashing success when it comes to sales.

"It will sell an absolute ton, as it always does. People will be talking about it for ages afterward, just like they do with GTA 5," Hinchliffe told GTA VI O'clock. "I think they've raised the bar again. They always do, and they have done again with GTA 6."

When asked about what he’s most excited about GTA VI, Hinchliffe said he’s keen on seeing how the game has evolved since he left in 2022. He did not give out any information, as it is expected to be a secretive project. Hinchliffe now works at Sniper Elite VR studio Just Add Water.