The Rogue Prince of Persia celebrated its 1.0 release yesterday with a remarkably honest behind-the-scenes video from developers Evil Empire, detailing the ups and downs of a year-long Early Access period, including the decision to completely overhaul the game’s art style and redesign its purple-skinned protagonist.
The video opens with the admission that this Roguelike take on the wall-jumping, time-rewinding Prince suffered multiple blows upon its Early Access release in May 2024. The first of these was the surprise drop of heavyweight Hades 2, which also launched in May and stole most of the Prince’s limelight. The second was the negative player response to both the game’s lack of content and its colourful visual style, which was inspired by Persian miniature paintings and the artwork of Mœbius/Jean Giraud.
Notably, the decision to give the titular Prince and all NPCs a purple skintone was met with confusion. In a developer diary from 2024, it was revealed that this was intended as a direct ode to the PC CGA port of Prince of Persia from 1990, which featured neon skin for all due to a limited 4-colour palette. Unfortunately, this homage went over the heads of most players.
“During a brainstorming session about skins, our art director had raised a seemingly innocent question,” says Evil Empire Marketing Manager Matthew Houghton in the video. “Are we sure that making the Prince purple won’t be a problem? At the time, everyone told him no. He was overthinking it; colours are cool, they’re stylish, it adds a bit of fantasy! Well…now we all know how that turned out.”
The rest of the footage details how Evil Empire not only packed The Rogue Prince of Persia with additional content, but also revamped the art style – a decision that is now conveyed in more detailed levels and a decidedly less-purple Prince adorning everything from the game’s key art to the album cover of its impressive soundtrack by Persian American musician ASADI. Alas, even this visual update faced unexpected friction in the form of a bizarre Steam issue which required the devs to use a Spanish phone number to get their own product updated.
“Through all those problems and roadblocks,” Houghton continues, “we’ve had a great community giving us a helping hand the whole way. Even when it was clear we had a tonne of work to do, they’ve been there giving us support, feedback and encouragement. So a special shoutout to you guys for sticking with us on our crazy journey.”
Despite these nice words, Houghton acknowledges that the game has faced a low player count during its Early Access. The 1.0 release is now considered final, and throughout the video there does seem to be a slight feeling of “well, we sure hope more folks play this, or else we’ll never make a sequel.” Which would be a shame, considering that last year’s Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was a superb effort that Ubisoft sent out to die with poor promotion before disbanding the team behind it.
I intend on giving the Rogue Prince of Persia a proper go this weekend and am looking forward to it. I also liked the purple Prince look, because I can’t help but admire unorthodox art design decisions, especially when they’re an ultra-niche homage to computer colour schemes that existed when I was a kid. But I can see how his grape skin along with the game’s more cartoony and dreamy original visuals failed to latch onto players, and it does feel as if the final result is actually a tad more reminiscent of the Persian miniature inspiration.
Most of all, however, I’m sticken by the frankness of Evil Empire in this video. Despite taking over Dead Cells DLC from Motion Twin, Houghton consistently acknowledges that the team was inexperienced in certain regards, and that this was their first fully-fledged project. It’s rare to see admissions of setbacks that aren’t couched in corporate industry speak (particularly for a gaming brand owned by Ubisoft). I only hope that the Rogue Prince of Persia manages to catch a few more eyes because of it.
