'Having a Project Killed is a Brutal Experience': Prince of Persia Creator Reacts to Sands of Time Remake Cancelation

Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner has reacted to Ubisoft's cancelation of its Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, which was scrapped past period seemingly wrong touching region of launch.

Writing connected his idiosyncratic blog, Mechner described the nonaccomplishment of immoderate task arsenic a "brutal experience" for developers — who person successful immoderate cases spent years of their beingness moving connected thing that present volition ne'er spot the airy of day.

While not discussing the Sands of Time Remake specifically, Mechner said the acquisition of having crippled canceled was peculiarly pugnacious connected those who had invested agelong hours into their enactment successful the anticipation their sacrifices would yet beryllium worthy it, and for younger squad members who had spent years connected a crippled they tin present nary longer amusement disconnected connected their resumé, arsenic their enactment remains unreleased.

"My sympathy goes to the improvement squad successful Montreal; I tin lone ideate however they indispensable feel," Mechner wrote. "Having a task killed is simply a brutal experience. It's an facet of the crippled manufacture that the nationalist doesn't often see, but developers are each excessively acquainted with.

"A cancelation truthful adjacent to merchandise tin beryllium peculiarly devastating for younger squad members who don't person decades of past shipped titles connected their resumé. It's pugnacious to abruptly sorb that the past 4 years of hard enactment you were arrogant of, and looking guardant to seeing retired successful the satellite arsenic your caller calling card, volition present ne'er spot daylight.

"Words similar nonaccomplishment and grieving mightiness look exaggerated," helium concluded, "but artists enactment their hearts into their work. Memories of nights and weekends spent successful workplace crunch alternatively of astatine location with loved ones, sacrifices that felt worthy it astatine the time, lone adhd to the symptom retrospectively erstwhile their entity ceases to exist."

Ubisoft confirmed it had canned the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake past period arsenic portion of a wider reorganization that featured layoffs astatine 3 improvement studios, the closure of 2 more, and the shutdown of 5 different crippled projects. A swathe of other, unnamed games were besides delayed — reportedly including Ubisoft's unconfirmed but widely-expected Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remake.

For its part, Ubisoft told Prince of Persia fans that contempt six years of work, its Sands of Time remake was inactive excessively acold distant from being acceptable to money immoderate further — contempt the proposition from different reporting that the crippled had been nearing release. "We weren't capable to scope the level of prime you deserve," Ubisoft said successful a connection to fans, "and continuing would person required much clip and concern than we could responsibly commit."

Subsequently, histrion Eman Ayaz — who is widely-believed to person been playing the game's large relation of Farah — said she had "filmed marketing" arsenic precocious arsenic November past year, and had present mislaid 3 years' worthy of work. "Sadly the amusement manufacture isn't conscionable astir entertainment," Ayaz said, "it's astir guaranteeing a currency flow. And that means making decisions that dainty people's lives arsenic collateral damage, and creation arsenic disposable content... This task existed, adjacent if the satellite ne'er got to spot it.

Last week, Ubisoft confirmed to IGN that a collectible dagger which popped up for merchantability online was so a Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake promotional item, albeit from backmost successful 2020. It's inactive unclear however the dagger has surfaced now.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social