Back in May when I first played Ubisoft's new Metroid-like Prince Of Persia game, The Lost Crown, ahead of its reveal at this year's Summer Game Fest, I got to sample several hours' worth of some of the early areas inside its cursed mountaintop citadel of Mount Qaf. Some of protagonist Sargon's powers had been unlocked early to give us a taste of his abilities, and on the whole, I had an exceedingly good time with it. One thing was missing though, and that was any kind of narrative framing for why Sargon was here in the first place. Sure, we'd been told ahead of time that Sargon's main mission in The Lost Crown is tracking down and saving the eponymous Prince of this game, but I didn't actually see any of this in action. Anything with the slightest whiff of story about it had been expertly excised from that initial demo build, and I was left none the wiser about how those opening hours of The Lost Crown would really play out in the final game.
Now, I've been able to play the game from the beginning, with all the story bits slotted back in and Sargon's powers unlocked in the correct order. You may have got a glimpse of some of that stuff in the new trailer released during last week's Game Awards. In the space of two minutes, it sets the scene for Sargon's rescue mission by first introducing all of his fellow warrior mates, and then seconds later showing how they're all at each other's throats as they get increasingly turned around in Mount Qaf's labyrinth. And oh my, I can practically feel all the inevitable backstabbing from here. It's going to be delicious, I can tell, and I can't wait to slice them all six ways to Sunday when The Lost Crown comes out in January.