Just when I thought this weekend would be a complete bore a supposed screenshot for what could be Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia reboot has surfaced. We haven’t seen much of the Prince of Persia franchise since the infamous 2010 incident in which we received the double-whammy of the mediocre PoP film starring the dreamy Jake Gyllenhaal and the obvious cash-in PoP video game Ubisoft opted to release.
Being a staple of Ubisoft it was never believed that the good Prince had been put out of commission, but his lack of presence did seem alarming. Now it seems like Ubisoft is ready to bring back the PoP franchise in a way that may seem familiar to fans of the franchise but at the same time following in the steps of what Ubi did with Splinter Cell: Blacklist - it’s a quasi-reboot.
Opting to start from scratch, Ubisoft is taking the PoP franchise in a direction that could become a bit polarizing for longtime fans of the series. Today a screenshot has been leaked depicting what has been referred to as PoP Zero II. Now the PoP series isn’t taking a note from the Metroid series as the title is merely a codename for now and refers to this new concept being the second iteration Ubi has done for the PoP reboot. Yes, according to certain tidbits Ubisoft actually tried to do a PoP reboot set in the modern day dubbed PoP Zero. Such a thing may sound odd and I assume it was seeing as how it was canned in favor of the current PoP project which appears to have an Egyptian flavor.
The screenshot we have today was posted on the PoP forums so it was found on some weird Russian gaming blog that has no credibility. Featuring what is likely the main character standing in front of a small crowd, the screenshot looks good graphically and that’s likely because it’s running on DX11. Some technical oddities are abound in the screenshot such as character models floating on the ground or having their legs spread apart, but the visual fidelity does look good and easily could be an early next-gen launch game.
The validity of this screenshot may seem suspicious as we don’t have mega leaks all that often, unless it’s a Sony project of course, but this image does have a piece of supporting evidence. Prior to E3 this year a mysterious image appeared for a Ubisoft game showing a burly warrior in an ancient setting, thus our alarms went off and the logical leap was made that the image was for a new PoP.
The supposed PoP image that leaked pre-E3 this year.
Of course E3 came and went and Ubisoft only unveiled the new Splinter Cell and the amazing Watch Dogs as their new projects. Buzz around this PoP leak subsequently died, but the image leaked in June does gel with what we have today. So either someone is putting together and elaborate hoax made via an Assassin’s Creed mod or this is our first look at the new PoP game.
The choice to reboot the PoP franchise in this way does seem odd as it’s essentially abandoning everything the franchise is known for. Having a Persian setting seems to be a thing of the past and so does any core acrobatic movements as this new protagonist looks like more of a brawler rather than someone that’s keen to shimmy and do parkour all the time. I’m going to keep my mind open for now, but I hope Ubisoft just doesn’t give us a game that borrows too much from other games in the hopes of making a splash.
When we can expect the reveal of this new PoP game is unknown, but I have a feeling we can expect this to be one of the first next-gen reveals that will appear at the Spike VGAs this December.
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