The Rogue Prince of Persia is a new roguelike game based on the popular Ubisoft series. Unlike previous games that have come in the past, this time around the essence of the game is to run through the various biomes, fight enemies, perform cool parkour tricks and essentially die. When you die, you’re reborn again with a few added perks and currency you can use to purchase new gear.
It sounds like any cookie-cutter rogue-lite game because it is. The Rogue Prince of Persia has been crafted by the team that worked on the phenomenal Dead Cells DLC including the Return to Castlevania and The Queen of the Sea DLC.
Evil Empire knows how to make a rogue-lite and the Prince of Persia theme seems fitting for this game. It follows the Prince as he travels through the kingdom fighting off the Huns who have invaded the area. The early early access build is a little short on the story but it sets things up for the next acts to follow.
The Prince is joined by other pink-skinned people (no seriously, why are they pink?) who are scattered around the world to discover. Some of these evolve the more you die while others act as main objectives you need to complete in order to save them.
Azadeh, for example, is a lone survivor of an invaded village who slowly rebuilds it from the ashes. Each time I went by the area after dying, of course, a little more progress had been made to the buildings. Other characters act as the so-called perma-upgrades to the game’s rogue-lite experience.
Some of these make gear and others make medallions. Keep in mind that “making” them only takes the unlocked items and puts them into the loot pool which you’ll find in the next run. By the time I completed the early access content, I had all these support NPCs available in my respawn hub.
A general run-through of The Rogue Prince of Persia revolves around going from the respawn point and trying to adventure as far into the chapter as possible without dying. The Prince is kitted out with daggers at first and a bow.
It doesn’t take long before new weapons are found. Be them in chests, just around the level or obtainable by completing some rather fantastic parkour challenges. In the early access build, these weapons are not the most exciting things around. They lack any noteworthy stats and perks and feel quite basic. The axe is likely the most “out there” weapon only because it feels unlike the rest when wielded.
The secondary weapons are much the same here too. A bow and arrow, a dart that let me teleport into an enemy and a chakram that spins forward and returns. There are some additional weapons you can obtain by defeating bosses and finding them throughout the world. However, in comparison to say, Dead Cells, there’s a clear lack of variety here still. Sure it isn’t fair to compare the games but I hope this arsenal grows.
The Prince can then collect Spirit Glimmers which are then deposited into braziers. Once stored, they are used as currency to unlock new weapons and gear. Once unlocked, these weapons and medallions are then added to the loot pool throughout the game.
Enemies drop Spirit Glimmers and the currency is found in the various biomes. They act as the main upgradable resource to make the Prince feel more powerful. Of course, some NPCs can also upgrade weapons and medallions using gold. As a result, they deal more damage and offer enhanced stat changes.
While there are clear ways to upgrade various aspects of the game, I don’t feel as if The Rogue Prince of Persia is at a point where you can build a certain playstyle and work the game into it. Most rogue-lites have set-in-stone perks, elements and stats which you can sort of lean into when starting a new run. Throughout my 10+ hours with this game, I didn’t ever get the feeling I was working my way into a certain build.
This is an early access build of the game so this is a given. However, it would have been nice to have something to chew on here. There’s “maybe” a poison build in here somewhere but that’s about it.
Speaking of combat, where The Rogue Prince of Persia shines is in its incredible movement system combined with its fun combat. The Prince can dash along walls, leap to higher locations, spin around poles and slide down various surfaces.
This definitely follows in the traditional Prince of Persia ethos but it works so well in this game. Wall running above enemies and slamming down on them feels great. Running up a wall, and combining that with pole swing and another wall run felt even better. The Prince is a parkour master and somehow, it has been brilliantly implemented into this game.
Parkour challenges are also butt-clenching fun. I say this because in the later game, these challenge rooms were seemingly scattered with even more spikes, and deadly traps and both dealt more damage to the Prince. So I had to decide to either take the risk and get through this challenge room, possibly walking into my death or ignore the sweet loot at the end of it.
Of course, the uninteresting loot pool doesn’t help here. Most of the time these rooms resulted in mediocre loot drops because the item pool in the game is sadly limited in this early access build. However, I am sure these challenge rooms will be more lucrative as the game grows over time.
I think The Rogue Prince of Persia has the potential to be something great. I am actually replaying Dead Cells right now because of this game. Throughout my time with this early access build, I could not help but wonder where the game could go from here. It definitely needs work though. This early access build is severely shallow for a game – even for an early build.
I hope Evil Empire puts as much love and content into The Rogue Prince of Persia as Dead Cells because that would be magical. It won’t happen overnight but the future looks promising. As it stands, this rogue-lite is light. I hope to revisit the game when it reached V1.
This The Rogue Prince of Persia review is based on an early access build code provided by Ubisoft. The game is available now on Steam for R323.
Summary
The Rogue Prince of Persia is light for a rogue-lite even in its early access state. But the game has the potential to be something even greater as content arrives.
