• Developer – Evil Empire
• Publisher – Ubisoft
• Initial Release Date – May 24th, 2024 (Early Access)
• Available on – Windows PC
• Reviewed on – PC
• PC Hardware – Windows 11, Nvidia RTX 4080, Intel i9-12900k, 32GB RAM

There are exactly zero instances of Godsmack’s 2002 smash hit “I Stand Alone” in The Rogue Prince of Persia. ZERO. Literally unplayable.

0/10

Obviously, I’m joking. Evil Empire has absolutely packed The Rogue Prince to the tits with “I Stand Alone”. I counted 47 separate times the track played in my time with the game, and as we all know it is illegal to lie on the internet. The original Prince of Persia came out a cool 35 years ago in 1989, which is a long time. I know because I also came out 35 years ago in 1989 and I feel myself degrading with every passing moment. The original PoP was a rotoscoped, side scrolling platformer created by Jordan Mechner for the Apple II, and hilariously Ubisoft decided to both develop and publish two new side scrolling PoP games that released within 3 months of one another after not having a new entry in the series since 2010. You would think there might be a tiny bit more planning with that, but what do I know, I’m just some dude writing video game articles. The Rogue Prince released into early access on Steam on May 27^th, 2024.

I stumbled across The Rogue Prince while browsing the Steam store for new games to add to the other 487 games in my library. I knew nothing about it and looked at the screenshots and about 30 seconds of gameplay and decided I would check it out. I didn’t even read who the developer was before buying it, because I am a degenerate with a video game addiction. After a quick install and booting up the game, I thought to myself wow, this feels a lot like Dead Cells. Like, a lot like Dead Cells. Then I googled Evil Empire and whaddya know, since 2019 they have been developing free updates and paid DLC for Dead Cells. The Rogue Prince really feels like Dead Cells with a hefty (and pretty) coat of Prince of Persia paint. And that isn’t a bad thing by any means because Dead Cells is a fantastic game, but more importantly because this is a perfect format for a Prince of Persia game.

The gameplay loop of The Rogue Prince plays into the lore and theme of the PoP series perfectly. The eponymous Prince has some kind of time control ability in most of the games, allowing the player to avoid death by reversing the flow of time. In this iteration, he is revived after dying by a magical amulet he wears and transported back to the starting area, called the Oasis, where survivors you meet and rescue will gather and offer their services. You can unlock new weapons at the blacksmith Sukhra, visit your mysterious mentor figure Paachi to unlock new medallions to find during your runs, or spend your Soul Cinder currency gathered from exploration and killing enemies to unlock new skills and upgrades for the Prince for your next run. It is legitimately the perfect setup for a PoP game, and I applaud whoever pitched this concept at Evil Empire.

From a visual standpoint, the artwork and animations are beautiful. Each level has a very distinct artistic feel, from the Hun encampment, a destroyed village, city aqueducts, a sprawling academy, palace gardens, etc. There are quite a few levels to fight your way through, and each one presents a beautiful, sometimes creepy, backdrop for kicking the ass of a bunch of corrupted Hun goons. The art style is simple but has a charming hand drawn quality that I really appreciate, and the animation in the cinematics looks wonderful. Interactions with friendly NPC’s via text based story board panels actually bring more emotion and expression than I expected, and some of the Prince’s facial expressions during these interactions are quite funny. Kudos to the artists on all of it.

On the animation side, everything has an over the top, almost “anime” kind of quality to it, which again fits the theme and style perfectly. One aspect of gameplay that I did not expect is being able to run on walls. While it is a staple of the modern entries in the series and should be expected, it wasn’t something I was expecting in a 2D side scrolling platformer, but it adds something really special to the formula. You can run up vertical walls and launch yourself off to reach higher platforms, and even run and jump off walls in the “background” of the levels. This extends into combat as well, as you can run on walls to avoid enemy attacks and reposition yourself behind enemies, which is very useful when you have a build that increases backstab damage or critical hit chance on attacks from behind.

While it looks great, and it’s a very cool concept in a sidescroller, the execution is a bit lacking. It’s hard to describe, but something about the wall running and movement seems a little bit off, almost as if there is an input lag. I’m not the only one who noticed this though, and Evil Empire has already acknowledged that they are working on an update soon to resolve this issue, along with many other changes. It can be very frustrating to have a good run go south because the game doesn’t register your attempt to run or dodge fast enough.

Combat is fast and frenetic, the Prince can’t take much damage, especially not when you first start out, and enemies hit pretty damned hard, so wall running and vaulting over enemies is a big part of combat. Each weapon you can find and unlock has different secondary abilities, some of which are very powerful, like my personal favorites the javelin and poison claws. The former allows you to throw a javelin at a distant enemy when you hold the attack button, and the latter launches two poison daggers, one in front of you and one behind you. I’ve found the poison dagger ability of the claws to be extremely helpful, especially if you can trap an enemy across a gap or some other obstacle and just pelt them with daggers until they die. It’s not cheesing, it’s a legitimate strategy.

You also have secondary weapon options, such as a bow, chakram, a grappling hook, and more. These are activated using the B button (a controller is recommended by the developers), or circle if you’re playing with a PlayStation controller. I’m personally using an Xbox controller, and I do have some gripes with the controller scheme, but huge props to Evil Empire, they have made the controls completely re-bindable. Such a simple feature that some modern games are strangely missing. For me, B/Circle is hard wired into my brain as dodge, and I found myself frequently confusing the right trigger and B in combat and getting myself killed. Your secondary weapon has a stamina mechanic that drains as you use it and refills as you hit enemies with your primary attack, which is an interesting mechanic. Personally I would prefer to be able to use my bow freely, but some of the secondary weapons/tools can be pretty powerful, so I understand the limitation.

Another big component of combat is kicking. Y/Triangle has the Prince kick the shit out of an enemy, launching them back quite a ways which can be used to get environmental kills or slam them into a wall, causing them to be stunned. Running on the walls over an enemy’s head, getting a combo on his buddy, then turning around and kicking the last one into a spike wall is very satisfying. The combat, when it is all working properly, is really damned fun.

Audio wise, The Rogue Prince is not slacking. Hits are punchy, jumping and vaulting have some nice oomph to them, and the music is also fantastic. After all, who doesn’t like “I Stand Alone”? The music and ambient sounds in the Oasis are unexpectedly relaxing as well. No, Sully Erna will not be serenading you as you prepare in between runs, unfortunately you will have to listen to birds chirping, fires crackling and beautiful Setar tunes.

The Rogue Prince has been a surprise sleeper hit for me. I went into the game completely blind and I have enjoyed my time with it thoroughly so far, despite a few rage quits here and there. It is in early access, and only eight months on from the EA release it’s already a bit of a hidden gem in my opinion. With the promise of additional content, updates, tweaks and changes from Evil Empire, The Rogue Prince will definitely remain on my radar for a while longer. The main factor holding back my score from being higher at the moment is the feeling of input lag in the controls, which Evil Empire aims to address soon. I look forward to seeing the finished product, and for $20 it is an early access product that I can absolutely recommend if action roguelike platformers are your cup of tea.

8.5/10

All images courtesy of Bad Habit Gaming and Evil Empire. All screenshots featured are captured during gameplay. This review is based on a paid retail copy.