Anonymous sources from Ubisoft’s Pune and Mumbai studios in India, the former developers for the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake, say that the publisher mishandled the game’s production in multiple ways. If true, this would cast Ubisoft’s earlier statement that the game’s development would be transferred to Ubisoft Montreal in a different light.
Why the trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake looked awful
According to sources compiled by 0451 Games, a newsletter on Substack that primarily follows the console and PC gaming market in India, Ubisoft mismanaged the remake from the very beginning. Remaining anonymous for fear of retribution, they blame the inexperienced and over-ambitious leadership by Jean-Philippe Pieuchot, the boss of Ubisoft’s India studios at the time.
They claim that their teams were only given a barebones design document about 10 pages long, forcing them in effect to reverse-engineer the original game’s levels from the ground up. Moreover, the studios were tasked with using Ubisoft’s Anvil Engine from Assassin’s Creed Origins, attempting to take the original animations of the Prince and somehow fit them over the “stockier, heavyset frame” of Bayek, the protagonist from Origins.
The sources also say that they had no oversight from Ubisoft until the official reveal trailer released in September 2020 that currently has a ratio of 5.1 thousand likes to 8 thousand dislikes. At the time, fans were disheartened by the poor graphics for a supposed remake of a beloved game in the publisher’s history.
The vocal backlash not only resulted in Pieuchot being moved to Ubisoft Kyiv and Odessa, but both Ubisoft Pune and Mumbai have reportedly been relegated back to quality assurance testing with much of the senior talent leaving the studios. The remake was outsourced to Electric Square last year before being moved yet again to Ubisoft Montreal. According to the official site for the game, it is currently unknown when the release date or what the release platforms for the remake will be.
In other news, the Fall Guys free-to-play update includes cross-play and cross-progression, and both Ubisoft+ and Ubisoft+ classics will be coming to PlayStation.
