Hands-on preview: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

I recently had the opportunity to dive into a roughly three-and-a-half-hour hands-on preview of the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and I had no idea what to expect.

I’ve actually not played Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, so my most recent experience with the series goes back all the way to 2008’s Prince of Persia. The switch to a 2.5D format intrigued me as it felt like one of those situations where it could be a big payoff, or potentially the wrong move. After playing The Lost Crown for a few hours, it certainly feels like the right choice.

A return to form

The Lost Crown is a Metroidvania-style 2.5D platformer. You’ll traverse a massive map with rooms that interconnect as you fight a variety of enemy types, complete puzzles, and obtain some loot. As you progress, you’ll unlock shortcuts and teleport points that allow you to quickly navigate the massive map so you can return to previously-visited locations after later unlocking skills that allow you to access previously unreachable areas.

In my session, protagonist Sargon, a member of the Persian warrior clan The Immortals, sets out to the cursed city of Mount Qaf in an effort to rescue the recently kidnapped Prince Ghassan. In classic Prince of Persia fashion, time works a little differently at Mount Qaf, which in turn paves the way for some pretty interesting possibilities both in terms of story and gameplay. For example, later in the session, I unlocked the ability to perform my evade action while in the air, allowing me to jump over attacks and quickly evade to dash behind my enemy and keep up the pressure.

Oh, by the way, the soundtrack in The Lost Crown is top-notch. The Persian-themed music feels whimsical and mysterious when traversing Mount Qaf. But during challenging encounters, the music is intense and gets your blood pumping. Music is always an important part of a game, but in The Lost Crown, it elevates the whole experience. I can’t wait to hear more.

Risk vs reward

The combat system in The Lost Crown is extremely fluid and fast-paced. Sargon has a quick light attack, a heavy attack that takes longer to perform but deals more damage, a block, and a dash-style evade. You can combo your light and heavy attacks, and even obtain loot that can be equipped to alter your potential combos. Blocking will mitigate damage, but must be timed correctly. However, some attacks are unblockable as indicated by a flash of red light when the enemy performs it. When that happens, blocking is not an option, and you must instead evade the attack.

Evading provides you with a brief invulnerability window, which means in theory you could play it safe by just trying to evade every attack as opposed to block. But enemies can also perform special attacks that give you the opportunity to perform a block that leads to a special counter-attack. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then your enemy may flash a yellow light instead of a red one. When this happens, if you perfectly time a block, you will not only mitigate the damage from the special attack but follow up with a high-damage counterattack that often also leaves your opponent vulnerable for a brief period of time. Successfully timing this block leading into a counterattack feels very rewarding, and can often turn the tide of a battle in a boss fight.

Challenging yet fair

Where Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown truly shines is its boss encounters. Across my hands-on session, I encountered around half a dozen bosses. Each one of course with its own unique skillset and attack patterns, allowing me to learn with each attempt. One of the more challenging boss fights took me a handful of attempts but with each subsequent attempt, I found myself learning more about the fight. This could be an extra attack window or a way to better position myself ahead of an attack. Despite how challenging some of the encounters were, each one felt fair and killable.

I know this term gets thrown around too much lately, but in a way, The Lost Crown has elements of gradual satisfaction commonly found in the Soulslike genre. The way you can learn the attack patterns of the boss encounters feels good. There were several times when I’d get my butt kicked fighting a boss, but by the time I got a good grasp of the attack patterns of the boss, I’d end up performing a flawless attempt when I got the kill.

I’ll admit, my expectations going into Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown were somewhat reserved. I was hopeful the return to 2.5D would do it justice. It certainly does, and honestly, the boss fights alone have me excited to continue Sargon’s adventure. The narrative is intriguing and I’m excited to see how the skills and equipment you unlock later in the game will change the combat.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown releases on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch on January 18, 2024 at a price point of $49.99.