The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake has been in development for a long time and won’t be released until 2026. Ubisoft Montreal is working hard to keep the original game’s feel but also make it appealing to modern players.
The development team is now fully focused on the project, and senior members have shared their goals for the remake.
Prince of Persia Remake Trailer
One of the first challenges was finding the right balance between staying true to the original game and making it modern. According to creative director Bio Jade Adam Granger, they needed to keep “the original recipe” while changing other parts of the game.
“We are keeping some things the same, like the wall run, which is iconic, so we will try to match it as closely as possible,” Granger said in a Ubisoft blog post. “The dagger is another core element we respect: time powers, the game’s tone, and the gravity-defying gameplay. But we are modernizing things like the level design and making the world feel bigger.”
Game director Michael McIntyre added that combat has also been updated, but key moves like the overhead vault strike and rolling attacks remain so players still feel like acrobatic heroes.
Granger explained that the long development time—the project was first announced during the 2020 Ubisoft Forward Showcase—was partly because the standards for remakes have gotten higher. They made big changes to the characters, camera, and controls, and built prototypes to fine-tune the gameplay.
“It takes time, skill, and people, which is why we have help from other studios,” Granger said.
The story will stay the same, but McIntyre said players will see more interactions between the Prince and Princess Farah. “Probably the biggest change we’ve made is making Farah more present,” McIntyre said. “There will be more interactions between her and the Prince, so you get to see more of their relationship. They will spend more time together.”
This year is the 35th anniversary of the Prince of Persia franchise, and Ubisoft is celebrating with new content for two of its recent releases. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown will get more DLC, including its first expansion, Mask of Darkness, in September. Currently, in early access on PC, The Rogue Prince of Persia’s first big update adds a new area to explore, more weapons, and tougher enemies.
Extended Development Timeline
Just one week after adding Ubisoft Toronto to the team working on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, Ubisoft announced a new release date during its big livestream today—it’s now set for 2026.
The remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time will finally arrive in 2026 from Ubisoft. pic.twitter.com/IbxcPFwUQw
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) June 10, 2024
This seems like a long time to remake a game that already exists, especially with two of Ubisoft’s biggest studios, Ubisoft Toronto and Ubisoft Montreal, working on it. The game has already been in development for a long time and was completely restarted in 2023 for unknown reasons.
So, technically, it will be three years of development from the restart, which is still a long time unless they plan to make big changes to the game. If that’s the case, why not just create a brand-new game instead?
Despite all the time and effort, Ubisoft hasn’t shown any progress on the Sands of Time Remake. The big reveal today was just the new release date. Also, without mentioning it directly, they have slightly changed the name by dropping the word “Remake.” It is now simply called Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.