Gaming 8.5

The Rogue Prince of Persia Early Access Review – The Year of the Prince

Francesco De Meo • May 27, 2024 at 03:00am EDT

Game Info

The Rogue Prince of Persia

May 27th, 2024 (Early Access)

Platform

PC (Steam)

Publisher

Ubisoft

Developer

Evil Empire

2024 is, without a doubt, the best year the Prince of Persia series has had in a very long time. The indefinite delay of The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake made more than a few fans worry about the fate of the entire series, especially at a time when almost all big publishers are focusing on their core IPs due to financial matters, the release of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown proved how the series is not only alive but also extremely well. A feeling that is further compounded by The Rogue Prince of Persia, an excellent roguelite take on the series' classic 2D formula developed by Evil Empire, the team responsible together with Motion Twin for the massive success of one of the most popular roguelites ever, Dead Cells, that shows incredible potential even in its early access release.

Unlike Dead Cells, whose story has to be pieced together from information gleaned during gameplay, The Rogue Prince of Persia has a better-developed narrative. Inspired by another excellent roguelite, Hades, the story of the Prince is developed after each run, with new characters joining him in the Oasis as he attempts to defeat the king of the Huns, Nogai, and save his people. The exceptional powers granted to the Prince by his bola allow him to turn back time at the point of his death, thus giving him the chance to take on the hordes of the Huns and the fearsome creatures they have summoned using their magic over and over until he is victorious.

Featuring only 10 hours or so of content, The Rogue Prince of Persia's story is currently incomplete, but even so, it is clear how Evil Empire, as already mentioned, wanted to go for a Hades-like experience where the mysteries surrounding the Prince's war against the Huns are gradually revealed after each run. There are a few side characters as well that get more development as the adventure proceeds, although it is far more limited compared to a game like Hades, although I am sure things will expand dramatically as the game gets updated in the future.

While a better-developed story is a welcome change over Dead Cells, it's The Rogue Prince of Persia's gameplay that has the potential to even surpass that of the most popular Metroidvania-meets-rogue-lite released to date, thanks to how the unique features of the Prince of Persia series have been weaved into the familiar formula.

On the surface, The Rogue Prince of Persia doesn't feel too different from Dead Cells. Controlling the Prince as he explores six distinct biomes featuring procedurally generated layouts reminiscent of Metroidvania games, players will have to fight their way through countless enemies using any of the eight main weapons and sis tools while also wall-running and jumping to access a variety of different areas. The six currently available biomes are extremely well-designed, and all come with a unique gimmick that sets them apart from the others. The starting biomes of the Village and the Hun Camp, for example, are distinguished by platforming and combat focus, respectively, while the Aqueduct and the Academy, to make another, offer different platforming challenges centered around different hazards unique to them.

The platforming mechanics are a definite standout of the The Rogue Prince of Persia experience and a massive step up over Dead Cells' more straightforward level design. The fact that the Prince can wall run on background elements also helps quite a bit, providing versatile traversal options that make the moment-to-moment gameplay extremely engaging. The traversal mechanics also shine in the currently available 13 traversal rooms, which feel like they could have easily belonged in The Lost Crown with their complexity. I hope Evil Empire goes all out with them in future updates, as I have found them to be the highlight of the experience.

While The Rogue Prince of Persia's combat is most definitely not on the same level as Dead Cells', it is still quite good. Though limited in number, the weapons and tools are quite varied, providing players with a decent number of playstyles and build options, which are further expanded by the thirty available Trinkets. These accessories grant unique perks while also powering up other Trinkets depending on which slot they are equipped, adding even more depth to the system, a depth that is expanded over the course of multiple runs as the Prince finds more of them and unlocks them at the Oasis using Spirit Glimmers. As for the game's first Early Access version, I have found some weapon types and builds considerably better than the others. However, the game's balance is surely getting tweaked in the future, as some elements are, in my opinion, in need of a tweak, like the amount of Gold earned, which is used to level up weapons and purchase items during a run.

If The Rogue Prince of Persia ever gets close to the humongous number of weapons and build options available in Dead Cells, it will have the chance to surpass the game it is mostly based upon. In some ways, I have found the Rogue Prince of Persia's general combat flow to be slightly better, thanks to the vault maneuver that allows the Prince to get behind enemies with ease and his kick attack, which pushes enemies away toward each other, or environmental elements, such as walls, spikes and so on. All this makes combat feel way more dynamic, forcing players to adapt to the situation more rather than just spamming the strongest attacks. Coming off The Lost Crown, the only thing that feels off in combat at the moment is the inability to aim ranged tools like the Composite Bow and the Chakram, which feels it should be possible to do in due to enemy positioning, but it's honestly only a minor issue.

Much like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, The Rogue sports a stylized visual style that gives the game a marked comic book feel. The blue-skinned characters may feel a little off in the beginning, but they stop being so in a short while, thanks to some excellent animations and how they blend well with the environments, which look great and have a ton of detail that brings them to life. The excellent soundtrack, which combines atmospheric elements with Middle Eastern melodies, greatly contributes to giving the game its peculiar feel.

This undemanding visual style makes it so the game can run decently well on various system configurations. On the machine used for the test (i7-13700F, RTX 4080, 32 GB RAM) during a benchmark session comprising multiple biomes and the first boss fight, The Rogue Prince of Persia ran at 4K resolution at an average of 271 FPS. The 67 FPS 1% low was mostly caused by some visible slowdowns happening during loading a new biome, but during gameplay, the experience was extremely smooth, so even those with less-powerful machines than mine should have no trouble running the game at 60 FPS and above. Unfortunately, there are no graphics settings to tweak in the current version outside of resolution and frame rate limit, so there isn't much one can do if the game doesn't run well for some reason, although I don't think this is going to happen to more than a handful of users with very old systems.

The Rogue Prince of Persia feels surprisingly well-fleshed out for being an Early Access release. While there's clearly more work to do in regards to content and balancing, the first version of the roguelite by Evil Empire is an extremely solid product that all fans of the series, as well as of Dead Cells, are sure to enjoy. With such solid core mechanics, I expect the increased narrative focus, the excellent platforming, and more dynamic combat to be appreciated even by those who were put off by Dead Cells, which is no small feat, given the game's high quality.

Early Access code provided by the publisher.

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8.5

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