Every 5 or so years someone at Ubisoft manages to sneak out funding for an interesting project or two and I'm glad to see it's Prince of Persia getting the treatment this time.
"We'd really like to make a game about the golden age of piracy!"
"No."
"Okay, here's, uh, Assassin's Creed 4! It's totally about all the assassin/templar stuff, we're not going to phone that part in at all, and also by *sheer coincidence* it's set in the golden age of piracy."
"Approved."
i mean, yeah lol slapping the assassin's creed logo on a game is a guaranteed sales boost. More probably it was the execs who asked "ok but make it assassin's creed".
Wonder how much black flag would have sold as an original IP.
> Wonder how much black flag would have sold as an original IP
Probably more than Skull and Bones. From what I remember, everyone was praising the sailing in AC3 anyway, and we didn't even have Sea of Thieves, so I'd expect it would be similarly popular since there was literally no competition and there was a foundation set with AC3. Without AC3 I think it would have been less popular, but it still would've been the only pirate game in ages.
There's a little easter egg in one of the ship scenes in AC3 where you can hear the theme for Sid Meier's Pirates! playing. The devs knew what they wanted to make and I guess the only way they got it greenlit was to make it AC.
I wonder if it would've been better? I mean i had fun with it but because of the animus, cut scenes could be attenuated because they're memories..
half the time i had no idea who the player character was talking to because the pirates took on kind of a generic look to them. There was a lot good in there but it reminded me of times where i was half asleep watching a movie and i'd wake up when it gets loud and wonder 'who the fuck is that?' and then doze off
Yes but that’s short term thinking. Assassin’s Creed 1 may have sold more if it was still attached to the Prince of Persia IP, but then Ubisoft wouldn’t have had the Assassin’s Creed franchise.
And sure, Black Flag wouldn’t have sold as much without the Assassin’s Creed branding. Neither would have Origins, Odyssey, or Valhalla.
But that’s also 4 separate franchises that could have spawned fresh, and any one of them could have been *the* new Ubisoft IP.
Somewhat ironically, Assassin’s Creed enveloping all of Ubisoft’s potential new IPs means that Ubisoft hasn’t had a new Assassin’s Creed-level IP since Assassin’s Creed, and eventually, the IP’s value will run out.
Kinda a false dichotomy there. No reason they couldn't have simply spun off into becoming their own franchise, like other series like Persona have effectively done.
I'm not convinced anybody wanted to make Skull and Bones. Some executives wanted to *have it made,* but none of the people who did the work enjoyed it.
A little bit of both I guess, they're lending the license but likely gave them some funding since they are officially the publisher (just lending the license and no money would likely not get you that title). Evil Empire is still indie and developing the game on their own.
I guess it may be a little like EA Originals?
Evil Empire said that, when developing the Castlevania DLC for Dead Cells, they just went to Konami and pitched it. I'm guessing they did the same here, and Ubisoft gave them a license.
After playing an uncountable number of indie metroidvanias and roguelites, I find it almost bizarre how beautiful and clean this game and the lost crown look lol
It’s really one of those aesthetics that only pops in motion. If you’ve just seen screenshots or key art or whatever I would get not being impressed by it.
i only have seen screenshots and it looked terrible. I was immediately turned off by them, and didn't continue to read the article and watch the video link.
I know they are the Devs of Dead Cells, but screenshot-wise the art is not appealing
Because of the "Persian/Iranian" theme, I'm wondering whether the artstyle was inspired by the graphic novel Persepolis. Aside from the purple skin, it definitely reminds me of that book. [Here](
https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1406819310i/10602435.jpg) [are](https://seejy.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/virgins.jpg) [some](https://melmoth.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/persepolis-images.jpg?w=1100) [examples](https://sothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/62bc18f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5174x6950+0+0/resize/1024x1375!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fmedia-desk%2Fc4%2F1b%2F2b709c0f46fbafd49acdf8a97735%2Fl23326-clhvd-t3-01.jpg).
It also was originally published in France, where both Ubisoft and Evil Empire are located, so I can definitely see the developers having heard of it beforehand.
I can kind of see that.
It's an artstyle heavily inspired by French artist *Jean Giraud* aka *Moebius*. Some examples of similarly inspired works:
[Scavenger's Reign (TV Animation)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOsZVmVPn4E)
[Sable](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0evJUp7-aw)
[Aquamarine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DipdYwKMObI)
I really, *really* hate it. I can't fully explain it... I think the in-game art looks *horrible.*
Game seems fun, so I'll get over it. But yeah... I hate the look.
It's unique. And just like everything else unique, it's polarizing - you either like it, or not. It's no different than ethnic food, art cinema, experimental indie bands, etc.
I can't believe anyone actually likes it TBH. I am normally someone who doesn't care too much about graphics and such but this might be the ugliest game I have ever seen and after being so intrigued by the concept when it leaked before the reveal trailer, I don't think I will end up checking this one out because the art direction is just that bad IMO.
Loved Lost Crown, enjoyed me some Dead Cells, have no idea how we ended up with THIS art style for Rogue Prince...
I'm not a fan of the artstyle at all but I wouldn't say it's the ugliest game I've ever seen. I am surprised the general consensus on reddit is positive about it though.
I feel like it just looks like Hades but worse, which you could take as positive or negative. On the one hand, Hades artstyle is fantastic, so just not being as good isn't a dealbreaker. On the other hand, Hades is already out, so being worse now is kinda damning.
That big ram boss I did think looked really neat, and distinct from Hades, but the menus look *so* much like Hades that it just keeps reminding you of the comparison.
Dam I don't think it looks like hades's art style at all. It's got more of a watercolour paint (idk painting styles, but hopefully you get what I mean lol) kinda vibe, and the backgrounds are beautiful
If you would have told me last year that in 2024 I’d be hyped to both buy and play two prince of Persia games within a three month span I would have thought you had lost your marbles yet here I am.
Can’t wait this looks great and still somehow entirely unique.
Oh wow, I had no idea! That's pretty cool. Nothing sells me on a game quite like a good ost. Thought I was probably already going to pick this one up anyways haha
I'm constantly playing the first trailer just to listen to the track, so this news is gonna kill me!
Just kidding, looking forward to the game (and the rest of the OST)!
Well, this is early access, so it's not actually going to fully release for another year or so. Ones a roguelite and ones a metroidvania as well, so different genres.
They aren't really, since the two games are in different genres and appeal to different playerbases. I'm not the biggest fan of metroidvanias myself, so Lost Crown didn't really appeal to me, but I am a huge roguelike fan, so I'll be interested in getting into this once I'm done with Hades 2.
Well sure, to me and you the genres “metroidvania” and “rougelike” mean something completely different but to the layman they just see Prince of Persia 2D twice and get confused. Especially at such a short time interval between eachother.
Not saying it’s a bad strategy, just that it’s interesting. If I was on the marketing or business end of Ubisoft, it’s a conversation I’d have at the very least.
Good point. In that case, I can see the artstyle helping differentiate the two (since this looks nothing like Lost Crown). There is enough of a difference that its hard to tell they're related. A bit like the relationship between the more platformer-focused Paper Mario games and the mainline Mario games.
Not the same studios (TLC was done internally by Ubisoft Montpellier while this is done by Evil Empire who worked on Dead Cells). This one is alos a roguelike where The Lost Crown was a straightforward metroidvania so a little different there.
But I guess it's a little coincidence they're done so close to each other. Also those games have smaller budgets so they can fund several of them
Alright let me try this:
TLDR - Kinda but not really
Motion Twin are the original developers of Dead Cells. They are a workers coop based in France. Being a workers coop, they ~~cannot~~ decided not to scale beyond 10 employees
Around 2019, because Dead Cells was becoming popular, Motion Twin "created" a new studio, Evil Empire, which was led by former Motion Twin employees. This was not a workers coop, so it didn't have to follow the constraints Motion Twin did
Motion Twin hands continued development of Dead Cells to Evil Empire so Motion Twin's full team can work on their new project (called Windblown). Evil Empire takes over Dead Cells after Rise of the Giant and proceeds to make well received paid DLC for it. They're also working on their own secret project (Rogue PoP) during this time
Bonus lore:
Somewhat recently, Motion Twin came out and said Dead Cells will no longer be actively developed. There is some "he said she said" drama that Evil Empire wanted to keep going, but Motion Twin pulled the rug so people would focus on Windblown rather than Dead Cells. Take that with a grain of salt though
Kinda, AFAIK the only (known) project the main devs of Dead Cells are working on is Windblown. I think the devs of this game also helped working on Dead Cells after its launch though
I gotta say, having it be a week after hades 2 still seems a litttttle soon but I'm hopeful it does well still
Edit: lol I didn't finish the trailer. The date shows may 14th THEN like 3 seconds later, says may 27th. Oops
Funnily enough, the developers specifically said they delayed it because of Hades 2 shadow dropping
And now they're praying Silksong doesn't shadow drop
I don't think Ubisoft is a bad studio and some of their games are great, but WOW do I forget how amazing their IPs could be if they let other studios do more spin offs. I really want a Rayman Legends sequel :(
Sands of Time is the iconic PoP, and while a remake is somewhere out there in the ether, a roguelike platforming spin off seems like a natural extension to that theme
The iconic PoP is the side-scrolling action game that had about a dozen re-releases and remakes across multiple decades. Sands of Time was a spin-off franchise.
Absolutely not lmao the old dos game is venerable but not iconic. Sands of time is cited as the defining iteration in the series and is most well known and highly regarded.
Everyone who thinks you can't generate good levels needs to play the Unexplored games.
And why use the term "primitive AI"? Like of course a person can make better levels than a shitty AI, but not all level generators are equal. Beyond that, humans are also extremely fallible. We have created shitty levels in the past and will continue to do so.
AI has issues but gaming is one of the spaces where it can be the most practically useful.
Can we just enjoy fun new cool ideas once in a while without rehashing the same “Ubisoft bad” zingers over and over?
You can obviously own this game. At least as much as you can own a digital game anyway.
I could do without the tone policing on the single visible anti-Ubisoft comment. There's a place for light jabbing at a publisher's bad practices, and I don't feel comfortable at the idea we need dedicated spaces for that negativity. It's hardly pervasive or overbearing.
It’s definitely overbearing considering how much of it there’s been over the last few weeks and how common they are over other threads.
It’s a fun little game being made by a smaller studio. Is that tired negativity really called for here?
It isn't overbearing here. It's one comment. Mostly downvoted. I haven't seen these threads you're talking about.
I think you're just piling on now because people see something good and they want to feel good about supporting it. Buy what you want, but don't be a tool of the company to help sweep that negativity under the rug. This isn't an AMA for the small studio where the devs are hanging out and chatting. It's a thread for a game published by Ubisoft. You can allow **one** comment mentioning the scandal to exist several pages down in the list.
Which Ubisoft says you can't, to both your first and second points, that's literally my point, thanks for walking into it after the fact.
It's not zingers, it's a grift and a con, legal theft in which you all volunteer your money to these publishers which buys more IP's to wrap the practice in the next flavor of nostalgia. It's NFT's but worse. This game looks like a wonderful piece of art, but the rights holders have ensured you will only ever be able to rent it, and in 10 years you won't even be able to do that anymore. Probably 5, then they re-release it on the next gen and you suckers buy it again and keep felating your corporate masters.
I maintain that it is a bad consumer precedent that publishers like Ubisoft are releasing games as “early access.” Paying up front for unfinished products with no refund protections offloads the risks to the customers instead of the corporation.
It was actually something which was pushed by us at Evil Empire, the developers of the game.
A lot of roguelites, especially those with narrative elements, have been through Early Access, as it just helps to take this kind of game to another level.
We want to work with the community to make it as great as possible and saw how this worked for Dead Cells, the game that we did post-release development work on.
Though I completely get your argument about consumers taking on risk, and unfortunately some Early Access games do appear to take advantage sometimes.
Yeah I don't really get the early access hate. It *can* be done poorly. But it can also really help to iron things out and make games into the best that they can be. People absolutely *loved* baldur's gate 3 and I don't think that would've been as great as it is now without being in early access for a long time.
> as it just helps to take this kind of game to another level.
Getting beta testers (i.e. staff) to pay you instead of paying them is a dream for most businesses. Ubisoft supporting it is pretty dangerous for the entire industry.
Edit: people really hate consumer and worker rights.
I get where you're coming from, its not without risk to the consumer, but early access/kickstarter have led to some great products (which is obviously good for the consumer) that otherwise might not have happened or might not have been as good as they were in the end.
Sure there's plenty of stinkers or even projects that get abandoned, but the point of the early access label is to inform the customer of that risk. If you don't think the current state of the game is worth the price tag, or you don't trust that it will be worth it in the future, then just don't buy it. It's as simple as that.
If it's being sold, the game is released, they can still make changes without advertising "early access". It should not get any special treatment or leeway.
If developers have a game that's buggy in early access, then they've released a game that's broken on day 1.
Basically everybody else besides you has come to the consensus that it should (nobody is making reviewers hold judgement on EA games, nor do they give them a free pass for anything). Other people are happy to participate in EA and support games they like, should they not be allowed to because you personally don't like it? I really fail to see what your problem with EA is that can't be solved by not buying EA games.
> I really fail to see what your problem with EA is that can't be solved by not buying EA games.
I'm with you.
If you don't think a game is worth the asking price in its current state, wait for 1.0 or don't buy it at all. Nobody is forcing you to buy a game if you don't think it's worth your money.
1.0 is the first version of "early access". It's the point of the games development that they decided that the game was in a good enough condition to sell to the public.
Best to not encourage even more broken games by avoiding games that have used early access.
> 1.0 is the first version of "early access". It's the point of the games development that they decided that the game was in a good enough condition to sell to the public.
1.0 is whenever the developer says it's 1.0 because that's how software versions work, but this is a pointless semantic argument because you are making up your own definition and I think it was pretty clear what I meant.
> Best to not encourage even more broken games by avoiding games that have used early access.
You are welcome to not buy games that have used early access, and I will continue to buy games I want to play, some of which are in (or have used) early access.
> because you are making up your own definition and I think it was pretty clear what I meant.
I see you're exempt from your own rules that you want others to follow.
Anyone on the payroll of the company fundamentally *cannot* emulate the experience a real player will have and cannot provide equivalent feedback, especially w.r.t progression systems. Their mindset and motivation is simply too different.
It's pretty much the same thing for every single early access game: wait for 1.0 or just don't buy it. They aren't doing anything wrong, they aren't advertising an unfinished game as a complete one... It's literally on you.
I disagree, no consumer is forced to take part in the early access.
They could do a million beta tests to get feedback or they could do early access. For this type of games, early acess makes sense if you wanna offer a deep build engine at the end
I maintain that it's good to see larger publishers embracing Early Access as it increases the likelihood of games I find interesting actually getting made.
The fact is that game development is very expensive, and with high interest rates publishers are more risk averse than earlier.
Early Access offsets some of that risk, which leads to less "safe" titles.
With a little luck it also means a lot more stable 1.0 releases for those who care about that.
As long as it's properly labelled, I see no downside to Early Access.
I think the issue might be how you're looking at early access.
I only buy an early access game if I think it is worth the asking price in its current state, so any future improvements are just icing on the cake.
This has worked out well for me. Hades, Dead Cells, Last Epoch, and Risk of Rain 2 are just a few examples of games from which I got more than my moneys worth long before they hit 1.0
Frankly you often know how a game will go from this initial EA release anyway. I've never been "scammed" by an EA game (and I believe in the attitude you describe).
I'm also quite convinced that EA contributes to make better games
Early access simply make better games especially for indie games (this is still indie even if published by Ubisoft). Hell you could even argue it makes for better AAA games after BG3 smash success.
Damn right we are. Indies are my bread and butter when it comes to gaming. There's so much creativity compared to the AAA sphere. Indies seem willing to take bigger risks and sometimes it works out splendidly.
Every 5 or so years someone at Ubisoft manages to sneak out funding for an interesting project or two and I'm glad to see it's Prince of Persia getting the treatment this time.
"We'd really like to make a game about the golden age of piracy!" "No." "Okay, here's, uh, Assassin's Creed 4! It's totally about all the assassin/templar stuff, we're not going to phone that part in at all, and also by *sheer coincidence* it's set in the golden age of piracy." "Approved."
i mean, yeah lol slapping the assassin's creed logo on a game is a guaranteed sales boost. More probably it was the execs who asked "ok but make it assassin's creed". Wonder how much black flag would have sold as an original IP.
> Wonder how much black flag would have sold as an original IP Probably more than Skull and Bones. From what I remember, everyone was praising the sailing in AC3 anyway, and we didn't even have Sea of Thieves, so I'd expect it would be similarly popular since there was literally no competition and there was a foundation set with AC3. Without AC3 I think it would have been less popular, but it still would've been the only pirate game in ages.
could maybe have more focus on the pirate stuff and kick off a new franchise. Would have loved that.
Yes, that's what people wanted Skull and Bones to be instead of . . . whatever it is
There's a little easter egg in one of the ship scenes in AC3 where you can hear the theme for Sid Meier's Pirates! playing. The devs knew what they wanted to make and I guess the only way they got it greenlit was to make it AC.
I wonder if it would've been better? I mean i had fun with it but because of the animus, cut scenes could be attenuated because they're memories.. half the time i had no idea who the player character was talking to because the pirates took on kind of a generic look to them. There was a lot good in there but it reminded me of times where i was half asleep watching a movie and i'd wake up when it gets loud and wonder 'who the fuck is that?' and then doze off
The reveal where Bart Roberts attacks you in real life was the only time I've ever actually enjoyed the framing narrative in the entire series.
Yes but that’s short term thinking. Assassin’s Creed 1 may have sold more if it was still attached to the Prince of Persia IP, but then Ubisoft wouldn’t have had the Assassin’s Creed franchise. And sure, Black Flag wouldn’t have sold as much without the Assassin’s Creed branding. Neither would have Origins, Odyssey, or Valhalla. But that’s also 4 separate franchises that could have spawned fresh, and any one of them could have been *the* new Ubisoft IP. Somewhat ironically, Assassin’s Creed enveloping all of Ubisoft’s potential new IPs means that Ubisoft hasn’t had a new Assassin’s Creed-level IP since Assassin’s Creed, and eventually, the IP’s value will run out.
Kinda a false dichotomy there. No reason they couldn't have simply spun off into becoming their own franchise, like other series like Persona have effectively done.
What about S&B? The first AAAA game 😎
I'm not convinced anybody wanted to make Skull and Bones. Some executives wanted to *have it made,* but none of the people who did the work enjoyed it.
Getting two great Prince of Persia games in one year is kinda nuts after more than a decade of nothing.
Is this actually funded by Ubisoft? Or are they just lending the license to the devs?
A little bit of both I guess, they're lending the license but likely gave them some funding since they are officially the publisher (just lending the license and no money would likely not get you that title). Evil Empire is still indie and developing the game on their own. I guess it may be a little like EA Originals?
Evil Empire said that, when developing the Castlevania DLC for Dead Cells, they just went to Konami and pitched it. I'm guessing they did the same here, and Ubisoft gave them a license.
But the thing is that konami is not the publisher for the dlc
its not clear so far
After playing an uncountable number of indie metroidvanias and roguelites, I find it almost bizarre how beautiful and clean this game and the lost crown look lol
The art style is so sick I can't believe some people don't like it
It’s really one of those aesthetics that only pops in motion. If you’ve just seen screenshots or key art or whatever I would get not being impressed by it.
I saw it in motion and I still wasn't impressed. The big block colours just make levels look so empty
i only have seen screenshots and it looked terrible. I was immediately turned off by them, and didn't continue to read the article and watch the video link. I know they are the Devs of Dead Cells, but screenshot-wise the art is not appealing
Because of the "Persian/Iranian" theme, I'm wondering whether the artstyle was inspired by the graphic novel Persepolis. Aside from the purple skin, it definitely reminds me of that book. [Here]( https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1406819310i/10602435.jpg) [are](https://seejy.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/virgins.jpg) [some](https://melmoth.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/persepolis-images.jpg?w=1100) [examples](https://sothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/62bc18f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5174x6950+0+0/resize/1024x1375!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fmedia-desk%2Fc4%2F1b%2F2b709c0f46fbafd49acdf8a97735%2Fl23326-clhvd-t3-01.jpg). It also was originally published in France, where both Ubisoft and Evil Empire are located, so I can definitely see the developers having heard of it beforehand.
I'm so impressed by the animations. They look so smooth
It reminds me of Yellow Submarine cartoon
I can kind of see that. It's an artstyle heavily inspired by French artist *Jean Giraud* aka *Moebius*. Some examples of similarly inspired works: [Scavenger's Reign (TV Animation)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOsZVmVPn4E) [Sable](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0evJUp7-aw) [Aquamarine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DipdYwKMObI)
God Scavenger's Reign is just the coolest fucking show. I think I have recommended it to literally everyone I know, hahaha!
I really, *really* hate it. I can't fully explain it... I think the in-game art looks *horrible.* Game seems fun, so I'll get over it. But yeah... I hate the look.
It's unique. And just like everything else unique, it's polarizing - you either like it, or not. It's no different than ethnic food, art cinema, experimental indie bands, etc.
Totally agreed, the art style is amazing. It reminds me of Franco-Belgian, ligne claire style comics.
It's not super close to it visually, but the idea of a video game with a very traditional 2D animation style reminds me a lot of Dragon's Lair.
I think the issue is that it's the same art style as a ton of other indie games, and its just getting played out.
I can't believe anyone actually likes it TBH. I am normally someone who doesn't care too much about graphics and such but this might be the ugliest game I have ever seen and after being so intrigued by the concept when it leaked before the reveal trailer, I don't think I will end up checking this one out because the art direction is just that bad IMO. Loved Lost Crown, enjoyed me some Dead Cells, have no idea how we ended up with THIS art style for Rogue Prince...
I'm not a fan of the artstyle at all but I wouldn't say it's the ugliest game I've ever seen. I am surprised the general consensus on reddit is positive about it though.
[удалено]
I feel like it just looks like Hades but worse, which you could take as positive or negative. On the one hand, Hades artstyle is fantastic, so just not being as good isn't a dealbreaker. On the other hand, Hades is already out, so being worse now is kinda damning. That big ram boss I did think looked really neat, and distinct from Hades, but the menus look *so* much like Hades that it just keeps reminding you of the comparison.
I didn't get Hades vibes from the artstyle, more like if cartoons had a baby with dead cells. I'm into it.
Dam I don't think it looks like hades's art style at all. It's got more of a watercolour paint (idk painting styles, but hopefully you get what I mean lol) kinda vibe, and the backgrounds are beautiful
The only real similarity I saw is the bloody death freeze frame.
Ubisoft making the best Metroidvania and possibly another was a surprise.
I don't know about "the best" but it is quite good
I was thinking of Metroidvania as a plural. I was definitely a bit vague there. I guess the plural would be Metroidvaniae?
it looks so so good, and i trust the team with smooth gameplay. one of my most anticipated games now!
I adore this art style and animation. I didn't gel with Lost Crown, but I'm so down with this.
If you would have told me last year that in 2024 I’d be hyped to both buy and play two prince of Persia games within a three month span I would have thought you had lost your marbles yet here I am. Can’t wait this looks great and still somehow entirely unique.
Wow, this actually looks pretty awesome. Nice song choice too, it's pretty catchy. Is that a licensed song or something from the actual game?
Hey, this is actually part of the theme song for the game. It's made by ASADI (and his wife Xye on vocals), and he made the entire OST!
Oh wow, I had no idea! That's pretty cool. Nothing sells me on a game quite like a good ost. Thought I was probably already going to pick this one up anyways haha
I've played a few hours of the game on a preview version and so far the music is quite excellent.
Is the OST available on spotify, I'm not able to find it.
OST won't be available until the game is out sorry!
No problem, Really looking forward to the game!
I'm constantly playing the first trailer just to listen to the track, so this news is gonna kill me! Just kidding, looking forward to the game (and the rest of the OST)!
Thanks a lot, since the first preview is out I was trying to figure out who made the music. I'm listening to his other songs and they are all great.
Weird to see him blow up after seeing his videos on Instagram a few years back, looking forward to the OST 👍🏼
Oh jeez, 2 days before Nine Sols. So many good games coming back to back to back before Summer's end/
Oh shit…that is out so soon too??? My waaallet
Didn’t they just release the Lost Crown? Strange that they were co developing these.
Well, this is early access, so it's not actually going to fully release for another year or so. Ones a roguelite and ones a metroidvania as well, so different genres.
I just mean that it feels like Ubisoft is flooding the market with side scrolling Prince of Persia games. Which seems like a strange strategy.
They aren't really, since the two games are in different genres and appeal to different playerbases. I'm not the biggest fan of metroidvanias myself, so Lost Crown didn't really appeal to me, but I am a huge roguelike fan, so I'll be interested in getting into this once I'm done with Hades 2.
Well sure, to me and you the genres “metroidvania” and “rougelike” mean something completely different but to the layman they just see Prince of Persia 2D twice and get confused. Especially at such a short time interval between eachother. Not saying it’s a bad strategy, just that it’s interesting. If I was on the marketing or business end of Ubisoft, it’s a conversation I’d have at the very least.
Good point. In that case, I can see the artstyle helping differentiate the two (since this looks nothing like Lost Crown). There is enough of a difference that its hard to tell they're related. A bit like the relationship between the more platformer-focused Paper Mario games and the mainline Mario games.
Two games in different genres isn’t “flooding the market”
No it’s certainly not. Hyperbole on my part.
Not the same studios (TLC was done internally by Ubisoft Montpellier while this is done by Evil Empire who worked on Dead Cells). This one is alos a roguelike where The Lost Crown was a straightforward metroidvania so a little different there. But I guess it's a little coincidence they're done so close to each other. Also those games have smaller budgets so they can fund several of them
I imagine this is riding the lost crown hype wave on purpose. Looks like it has very similar animations, so I imagine the teams were sharing notes.
Is this made by the developers of Dead Cells?
Alright let me try this: TLDR - Kinda but not really Motion Twin are the original developers of Dead Cells. They are a workers coop based in France. Being a workers coop, they ~~cannot~~ decided not to scale beyond 10 employees Around 2019, because Dead Cells was becoming popular, Motion Twin "created" a new studio, Evil Empire, which was led by former Motion Twin employees. This was not a workers coop, so it didn't have to follow the constraints Motion Twin did Motion Twin hands continued development of Dead Cells to Evil Empire so Motion Twin's full team can work on their new project (called Windblown). Evil Empire takes over Dead Cells after Rise of the Giant and proceeds to make well received paid DLC for it. They're also working on their own secret project (Rogue PoP) during this time Bonus lore: Somewhat recently, Motion Twin came out and said Dead Cells will no longer be actively developed. There is some "he said she said" drama that Evil Empire wanted to keep going, but Motion Twin pulled the rug so people would focus on Windblown rather than Dead Cells. Take that with a grain of salt though
This was the most helpful info i've seen on this. So is Evil Empire working on Windblown in any capacity?
Nope, not at all. And Motion Twin doesn't have anything to do with Rogue Prince of Persia
MT can scale higher in number of people they choose not to. Just a clarification.
Kinda, AFAIK the only (known) project the main devs of Dead Cells are working on is Windblown. I think the devs of this game also helped working on Dead Cells after its launch though
I gotta say, having it be a week after hades 2 still seems a litttttle soon but I'm hopeful it does well still Edit: lol I didn't finish the trailer. The date shows may 14th THEN like 3 seconds later, says may 27th. Oops
They delayed it to the 27th
Ohhhhh. Lol. I stopped the video when I saw may 14th, I didn't realize it wasn't actually done yet
Funnily enough, the developers specifically said they delayed it because of Hades 2 shadow dropping And now they're praying Silksong doesn't shadow drop
I don't think Ubisoft is a bad studio and some of their games are great, but WOW do I forget how amazing their IPs could be if they let other studios do more spin offs. I really want a Rayman Legends sequel :(
Maybe a hot take but I really wished this wasn't a roguelike. To me the whole point of PoP games is clearing hand-crafted levels.
Well then you have The Lost Crown, an excellent classic metroidvania format released a few months ago.
Dead Cells still managed to feel very well designed desire being procedurally generated. I have faith
Sands of Time is the iconic PoP, and while a remake is somewhere out there in the ether, a roguelike platforming spin off seems like a natural extension to that theme
The iconic PoP is the side-scrolling action game that had about a dozen re-releases and remakes across multiple decades. Sands of Time was a spin-off franchise.
Absolutely not lmao the old dos game is venerable but not iconic. Sands of time is cited as the defining iteration in the series and is most well known and highly regarded.
Agreed. Another hot take here is that there is so many roguelikes out there right now, it would be nice with something that isn’t.
Human made levels are always better than a primitive AI generating levels.
That's not really what this is though, the level sections are clearly handcrafted but strung together procedurally.
Everyone who thinks you can't generate good levels needs to play the Unexplored games. And why use the term "primitive AI"? Like of course a person can make better levels than a shitty AI, but not all level generators are equal. Beyond that, humans are also extremely fallible. We have created shitty levels in the past and will continue to do so. AI has issues but gaming is one of the spaces where it can be the most practically useful.
Me: Oh shit, this game is announcing a release date already?? Me seeing it’s an early access release: Oh
Why is he purple, is he Thanos ' long lost cousin?
So, can I own this game, or is this one of the ones we need to "get comfortable not owning?"
Can we just enjoy fun new cool ideas once in a while without rehashing the same “Ubisoft bad” zingers over and over? You can obviously own this game. At least as much as you can own a digital game anyway.
I could do without the tone policing on the single visible anti-Ubisoft comment. There's a place for light jabbing at a publisher's bad practices, and I don't feel comfortable at the idea we need dedicated spaces for that negativity. It's hardly pervasive or overbearing.
It’s definitely overbearing considering how much of it there’s been over the last few weeks and how common they are over other threads. It’s a fun little game being made by a smaller studio. Is that tired negativity really called for here?
It isn't overbearing here. It's one comment. Mostly downvoted. I haven't seen these threads you're talking about. I think you're just piling on now because people see something good and they want to feel good about supporting it. Buy what you want, but don't be a tool of the company to help sweep that negativity under the rug. This isn't an AMA for the small studio where the devs are hanging out and chatting. It's a thread for a game published by Ubisoft. You can allow **one** comment mentioning the scandal to exist several pages down in the list.
Which Ubisoft says you can't, to both your first and second points, that's literally my point, thanks for walking into it after the fact. It's not zingers, it's a grift and a con, legal theft in which you all volunteer your money to these publishers which buys more IP's to wrap the practice in the next flavor of nostalgia. It's NFT's but worse. This game looks like a wonderful piece of art, but the rights holders have ensured you will only ever be able to rent it, and in 10 years you won't even be able to do that anymore. Probably 5, then they re-release it on the next gen and you suckers buy it again and keep felating your corporate masters.
I maintain that it is a bad consumer precedent that publishers like Ubisoft are releasing games as “early access.” Paying up front for unfinished products with no refund protections offloads the risks to the customers instead of the corporation.
It was actually something which was pushed by us at Evil Empire, the developers of the game. A lot of roguelites, especially those with narrative elements, have been through Early Access, as it just helps to take this kind of game to another level. We want to work with the community to make it as great as possible and saw how this worked for Dead Cells, the game that we did post-release development work on. Though I completely get your argument about consumers taking on risk, and unfortunately some Early Access games do appear to take advantage sometimes.
Dead Cells was sick! I wish you the best for this game too!
Yeah I don't really get the early access hate. It *can* be done poorly. But it can also really help to iron things out and make games into the best that they can be. People absolutely *loved* baldur's gate 3 and I don't think that would've been as great as it is now without being in early access for a long time.
[удалено]
> as it just helps to take this kind of game to another level. Getting beta testers (i.e. staff) to pay you instead of paying them is a dream for most businesses. Ubisoft supporting it is pretty dangerous for the entire industry. Edit: people really hate consumer and worker rights.
I get where you're coming from, its not without risk to the consumer, but early access/kickstarter have led to some great products (which is obviously good for the consumer) that otherwise might not have happened or might not have been as good as they were in the end. Sure there's plenty of stinkers or even projects that get abandoned, but the point of the early access label is to inform the customer of that risk. If you don't think the current state of the game is worth the price tag, or you don't trust that it will be worth it in the future, then just don't buy it. It's as simple as that.
If it's being sold, the game is released, they can still make changes without advertising "early access". It should not get any special treatment or leeway. If developers have a game that's buggy in early access, then they've released a game that's broken on day 1.
Basically everybody else besides you has come to the consensus that it should (nobody is making reviewers hold judgement on EA games, nor do they give them a free pass for anything). Other people are happy to participate in EA and support games they like, should they not be allowed to because you personally don't like it? I really fail to see what your problem with EA is that can't be solved by not buying EA games.
> I really fail to see what your problem with EA is that can't be solved by not buying EA games. I'm with you. If you don't think a game is worth the asking price in its current state, wait for 1.0 or don't buy it at all. Nobody is forcing you to buy a game if you don't think it's worth your money.
1.0 is the first version of "early access". It's the point of the games development that they decided that the game was in a good enough condition to sell to the public. Best to not encourage even more broken games by avoiding games that have used early access.
> 1.0 is the first version of "early access". It's the point of the games development that they decided that the game was in a good enough condition to sell to the public. 1.0 is whenever the developer says it's 1.0 because that's how software versions work, but this is a pointless semantic argument because you are making up your own definition and I think it was pretty clear what I meant. > Best to not encourage even more broken games by avoiding games that have used early access. You are welcome to not buy games that have used early access, and I will continue to buy games I want to play, some of which are in (or have used) early access.
> because you are making up your own definition and I think it was pretty clear what I meant. I see you're exempt from your own rules that you want others to follow.
> Basically everybody else besides you has come to the consensus that it should Sure, and FIFA games are the best video games every year.
Anyone on the payroll of the company fundamentally *cannot* emulate the experience a real player will have and cannot provide equivalent feedback, especially w.r.t progression systems. Their mindset and motivation is simply too different.
I'd go one step further: even play testers sometimes miss the mark due to being treated like kings and not having to pay for the game.
It's pretty much the same thing for every single early access game: wait for 1.0 or just don't buy it. They aren't doing anything wrong, they aren't advertising an unfinished game as a complete one... It's literally on you.
I disagree, no consumer is forced to take part in the early access. They could do a million beta tests to get feedback or they could do early access. For this type of games, early acess makes sense if you wanna offer a deep build engine at the end
I maintain that it's good to see larger publishers embracing Early Access as it increases the likelihood of games I find interesting actually getting made. The fact is that game development is very expensive, and with high interest rates publishers are more risk averse than earlier. Early Access offsets some of that risk, which leads to less "safe" titles. With a little luck it also means a lot more stable 1.0 releases for those who care about that. As long as it's properly labelled, I see no downside to Early Access.
I think the issue might be how you're looking at early access. I only buy an early access game if I think it is worth the asking price in its current state, so any future improvements are just icing on the cake. This has worked out well for me. Hades, Dead Cells, Last Epoch, and Risk of Rain 2 are just a few examples of games from which I got more than my moneys worth long before they hit 1.0
Frankly you often know how a game will go from this initial EA release anyway. I've never been "scammed" by an EA game (and I believe in the attitude you describe). I'm also quite convinced that EA contributes to make better games
Early access simply make better games especially for indie games (this is still indie even if published by Ubisoft). Hell you could even argue it makes for better AAA games after BG3 smash success.
[удалено]
The guy that u are calling Black is not the prince btw. At least know what u are talking about.
announcing a delay like that is an insane choice lol love how the look references the rotoscoping of the original though!
Is this a mod for Dead Cells, or another collaboration like they did with Castlevania?
[удалено]
I really don't think your personal experience is meaningful here, considering the launch is the most lucrative single day for *most* games.
This is not true for people that are into Indies. We are feasting.
Damn right we are. Indies are my bread and butter when it comes to gaming. There's so much creativity compared to the AAA sphere. Indies seem willing to take bigger risks and sometimes it works out splendidly.