2024 is becoming more and more a year to remember for fans of the Prince of Persia series. After a long hiatus, the series made its comeback with The Lost Crown, a very good Metroidvania that brought the franchise back to its roots. The game developed by the Rayman team, however, won’t be the only new entry in the series to see the light this year, as a roguelite take on the series’ classic formula called The Rogue Prince of Persia will make its Early Access debut next month.
The Rogue Prince of Persia will feel familiar to anyone who played the amazing Dead Cells, which comes as no surprise, as it is being developed by Evil Empire, the studio that took over the development of the game in 2019 to allow Motion Twin to work on their next project. Over the years, Evil Empire has released some amazing updates that made an already great game even better. While it is impossible not to notice the similarities with Dead Cells, The Rogue Prince of Persia has its own distinct identity which did not fail to emerge even in the short play session I was invited to participate in.
Controlling the Prince as he attempts to stave off an invasion from the Huns, players will explore a variety of stages set in different biomes in a classic, side-scrolling fashion. Like in Dead Cells, stages are procedurally generated and are filled with complex platforming, enemies to defeat, items to collect, and multiple paths leading to the next stage. The short demo I played only featured two different biomes: a village biome with day and night variants and an aqueduct biome. Still, even in this early version of the game, it’s clear how each biome will have unique gimmicks that set it apart from all the others. The village biomes, for example, had a more complex level design with tons of different paths, while the aqueduct biome featured sections where precise jumping was required to avoid getting damaged by spikes. The enemies encountered in these biomes were also pretty varied, sporting different weapons and movesets. Some enemy configurations also featured enemies with shield gauges that had to be depleted with multiple attacks to be actually damaged and defeated.
While all this sounds exactly like Dead Cells, The Rogue Prince of Persia has plenty of unique twists that give the experience its own identity. Traversal, for example, is made a little deeper than your usual 2D sidescrolling roguelite by the introduction of the series’ typical wall-run abilities, which allow the Prince not only to reach platforms that a regular jump may not reach but also to use elements in the background to wall-run in pretty much every direction for a few seconds. These abilities truly shine in the game’s many traversal challenges, which are very reminiscent of the classic entries in the series and the aforementioned The Lost Crown.
Combat also has some interesting quirks that set The Rogue Prince of Persia apart from Dead Cells. The Prince can equip a main weapon and a secondary weapon that requires energy. While the interface showed multiple options, I could only try a few weapons like daggers, a two-handed sword, a saber, and a bow. Even so, combat felt varied enough, thanks to different movesets and attack speeds. Additionally, the Prince can use a dashing maneuver to vault over enemies, and a kick attack that can send enemies flying. This is an extremely useful attack, as it can stun enemies or send them into environmental hazards. Weaving together all these techniques is way easier than it may sound, so I feel the game will be quite welcoming to newcomers to the genre, although the procedurally generated nature of stages will inevitably turn some off.
Roguelites and roguelikes, in general, are made or broken by the variety of viable builds made possible by the combination of weapons and perks, and the short time I spent with The Rogue Prince of Persia was definitely not enough to evaluate this aspect of the game, but from what could be gleaned from the available items that can be unlocked with different types of currencies, I have little doubt that Evil Empire will eventually deliver a roguelite worthy of its name. Its Early Access release set for May 14th will only be the beginning, as the developer will progressively add more content over time, so there’s a good chance The Rogue Prince of Persia will become one of the best roguelites released in the past few years.