Summary

• Evil Empire's The Rogue Prince of Persia blends 2D action-platforming roots with a roguelike experience.
• Procedurally generated stages prevent repetition, adding fresh challenges.
• Varied combat and hidden secrets enhance gameplay, with Early Access on Steam in May 2024.

Evil Empire's The Rogue Prince of Persia stars the iconic Prince like he's never been seen before. Players were recently spoiled with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown's riveting combat, bringing the franchise back to its 2D platforming roots. However, Evil Empire's glowing reputation with 2D roguelikes makes it the perfect studio to provide a fresh and challenging adventure in a different vein than the series is used to.

Screen Rant was recently invited to participate in a hands-on preview of The Rogue Prince of Persia, a completely new take on the franchise from the creators of Dead Cells. While Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is absolutely worth checking out as a return to form, TRPoP provides a different experience with a stylish art style that's more animated than realistic, and the game's vibrant colors are far from the only noteworthy features the demo provided.

Going Back Changes Everything

Like The Lost Crown, The Rogue Prince of Persia Goes Back to the Series' 2D Roots

One of the Prince of Persia franchise's most iconic features allows the main character to rewind time to fix the player's mistakes, which the team at Evil Empire has spun into a roguelike experience. The newest Prince has been cursed to repeatedly return back to the last place of safety, this time at a camp, whenever they die. However, after a player dies, that is where The Rogue Prince of Persia begins to differentiate itself from past Prince of Persia titles.

When a player messes up and dies in The Rogue Prince of Persia, they thankfully don't have to repeat the same stages and enemies. Each area is procedurally generated to provide fresh challenges, which significantly helps prevent the game from growing overly frustrating and stale. Still, the type of enemies and area's themes will repeat until players defeat the challenging boss, which opens up the next location and chapter of the story. Players will likely need to navigate through the procedurally generated stages a few times, mainly because the bosses will require more than a few tries to defeat.

Gameplay That Is Both Familiar & Fresh

The Franchise's Iconic Mobility & Intuitive Combat Return

Besides wall running, timed jumps, and mystically-powered Hun warriors, the Prince will encounter treasures, weapons, and magical alters throughout their journey. During the preview sessions, more than a few types of weapons with helpful and unique buffs were found, and each provided unique playstyles that added further variety to The Rogue Prince of Persia. A fast double dagger provided quick strikes that could chip away at foes. At the same time, a gigantic slow axe weapon rewarded wise timing with formidable damage.

Most walls in the background can help slow players down or provide an extra jumping point by stabbing the wall with a knife.

Each weapon contains a special attack, like the double dagger's ability to charge past foes, leaving them damaged and stunned to receive more critical damage. The Rogue Prince of Persia's combat combines that with basic attacks, kicks, and secondary weapons that enable skilled players to perform combos and even use the environment to cleverly dispatch foes. While the game preview was limited, the combat felt varied and refreshing, thanks to all the options the game offers with mobility and combat.

Help Arrives In Many Forms In The Rogue Prince of Persia

Strong Weapons and Loot Can Be Hidden Behind Any Corner

As players explore each area and discover its hidden secrets, helpful shrines, characters, shops, and mini-dungeons can be found. Each can drastically help the Prince by providing more potent weapons, upgrades, and even additional lore for the situation the game explores. However, some extra bonuses come at a price - while the dungeons found in the preview provided challenging but fair platforming sections reminiscent of Super Mario Marker's -created stages, blood magic shrines required a sacrifice of precious health points to unlock powerful loot.

Sacrificing health is risky in The Rogue Prince of Persia because enemies hit hard, and health pickups are less plentiful than one may hope. During the demo, the player was equipped with two healing potions, and only a few minor health pickups were found hidden throughout the stage. Exploring the game with partial health was made even more tense because accidental deaths are easy to come by when underestimating particular enemies and how much damage they can deal. Even though it was only the first stage, The Rogue Prince of Persia seems like it will be a tough but rewarding experience.

The Rogue Prince of Persia feels like a unique and varied enough challenge.

Final Thoughts On The Rogue Prince of Persia

A Worthy Inheritor of the Prince's Title, At Least At First Glance

Evil Empire will release The Rogue Prince of Persia in Early Access on Steam on May 14, 2024, with a console release planned once the game reaches its 1.0 build. The developer has promised that while there is a hard stop for the game's story, the game will be consistently adjusted and receive free updates from the developer based on player .

Thankfully, The Rogue Prince of Persia feels like a unique and varied enough challenge that does not feel like it's stealing any thunder from January's release of The Lost Crown. Instead, both games look to provide intense and fun gameplay that captures what it means to be a Prince of Persia title.

Screen Rant was invited for a hands-on digital preview of The Rogue Prince of Persia for the purpose of this preview.