Ubisoft has reportedly disbanded the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown team
It’s claimed that low sales meant a sequel wasn’t on the cards
Ubisoft has disbanded the team responsible for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, according to a new report.
YouTuber Gautoz, part of the French YouTube channel Origami, reported the news on Tuesday, citing sources including multiple developers from Ubisoft Montpellier.
Update - Ubisoft responds
Ubisoft has now responded to the report, essentially confirming it to be true.
In a statement to Eurogamer, the game’s senior producer Abdelhal Elguess said: “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is now at the end of its Post-Launch roadmap with three free content updates and one DLC that released in September. We are now focusing on making the game available to more players: it was recently launched on Steam, and will be available on Mac by this winter.
“Most of the team members who worked on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown have shifted to other projects that will benefit from their expertise.
“We know players have a love for this brand and Ubisoft is excited to bring more Prince of Persia experiences in the future.”
According to Gautoz, the game’s initial sales were lower than expected, meaning any possibility of a sequel was effectively ended within weeks of the first game’s release.
The report says that some members of the development team pitched a sequel, which turned into a pitch for two DLC expansions instead.
It also claims that Ubisoft’s justification for rejecting the sequel pitch was that the release of a sequel would cannibalise sales of the original game, which were already lower than expected.
Gautoz added that from what he’d heard from his sources, The Lost Crown didn’t suffer from production issues, and that in fact the team considered it a joy to make.
“I heard or read ‘the best production of my life’ three or four times in one weekend about the development of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown,” he added on X.
“It provided both hope for another way of creating, and a rehabilitation zone for people burned out by Beyond Good and Evil 2, but the team was disbanded by Ubisoft.”
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was released in January to a positive critical reception, and currently has a Metacritic score of 85-87 depending on format.
However, the 2.5D action platformer had been met with a negative reaction by the gaming community ever since its first trailer was released during Summer Game Fest in June 2023, which received just 20% likes on YouTube.
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