The remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, has a new launch window. 2026.
That was the biggest news coming out of Monday’s Ubisoft Forward livestream event. The first Prince of Persia: Sands of Time launched in 2003, then was tabbed for a full-size remake in 2021. The project has changed hands among Ubisoft’s first-party studios, and now is in custody of Ubisoft Montreal.
Unofficially, the last we heard of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is that the remake was being “remade from scratch,” which suggests that the earlier work of Ubisoft Pune and Ubisoft Mumbai had been unceremoniously binned. The official most recent word, before Monday’s trailer, is that development of the game at Ubisoft Montreal had “passed an important internal milestone” as of November 2023.
As you know, the passionate team at @UbisoftMTL is reimagining this legendary story, and we are glad to announce today that the project has passed an important internal milestone and development is progressing.
We look forward to sharing more in the future!
— Prince of Persia™ (@princeofpersia) November 21, 2023
Ubisoft obviously has enough confidence in the project to announce a launch window for it even if that is two years away. Meantime, Prince of Persia fans have more than made do with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, an old school side-scrolling Metroidvania that launched in January on all consoles (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X) as well as PC.
The Lost Crown has drawn a favorable critical reception, for putting Ubisoft’s adventure franchise back on the map for the first time in more than a decade but also for its tight focus on the qualities that have made the 35-year-old series a fan favorite worth rebooting.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time first launched in 2003 for Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Windows PC, and Xbox. The 21-year-old game was itself a reboot of the series created by Jordan Mechner, begun in 1989, meaning when Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, launches for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X in 2026, it will be a reboot of a reboot.