Game development should be about evolution and pushing boundaries, not just about playing it safe and chasing the easy dollar, pound or euro. Admittedly, it's inherently difficult to change such a successful concept without losing something, but to basically run away screaming from evolution like this is a bad sign for the future. The Forgotten Sands still presents you with increasingly big rooms with conveniently placed levers, poles and columns to jump between and, while the action is exceptionally fluid, you'll be intimately familiar with the concept of deja vu after only a few hours of play.

While what worked in 2003 still works now, having no actual progression, bar the ability to freeze water a bit and a more exciting combat system, isn't really good enough.Īnnoyingly, things that did work well in 2009's Prince of Persia have been stripped out like using a companion's attacks to assist you in combat or in making huge jumps, and the hub-based mission structure. Something that was missing from Prince of Persia, where your female ally would save you every time you screwed up a jump. Time can be rewound and the tension of actually being allowed to fail has returned. It's been tried, tested and found to succeed so after the relatively experimental 'you can't die' approach of the last Prince of Persia, it's good to see a return to classic roots for the series. The Sands trilogy is fondly remembered, so giving the fans what they want is a sensible thing to do.

In practice this means playing r Forgotten Sands is like playing a slicker Sands of Time. These events fit in the period between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, acting as if the last game didn't exist. The battle is going badly and Malik is getting desperate, and seeks the assistance of a mystical armed forced sealed deep in the bowels of his citadel. Our Prince is on his way to visit his elder brother Malik, who he discovers is being besieged in his ludicrously oversized palace city.

Prince of persia 3d concept artwork