Ubisoft Responds To Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown Reports, Says Most Of The Dev Team “Have Shifted To Other Projects”

Yesterday, Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown fans received a big heaping of disappointing news. A report claimed that the development team at Ubisoft Montpellier behind The Lost Crown had been disbanded, and the sequel they proposed for the game rejected by Ubisoft leadership.

It also claimed that the decision came down to the fact that The Lost Crown did not sell enough to, in the eyes of Ubisoft’s leaders, justify the cost of a new one.

Today, Ubisoft have finally responded to those reports with a statement sent to Eurogamer, that does indeed confirm the developers behind The Lost Crown have moved on to other things.

Regarding the good news the statement brings, it confirms that those who feared the worst can back down – Ubisoft Montpellier is still alive and well, and while The Lost Crown’s team aren’t all working on the same thing, the Montpellier studio remains.

Moreover Ubisoft also confirmed to PSU in an email that “there were no layoffs” as a result of The Lost Crown coming to an end of its development cycle. The team was moved around, but no one was let go.

The definitively good news ends there though, and the rest of the statement leaves a strong taste of ‘vague’ on the tongue.

Here’s the full statement from Abdelhak Elguess, senior producer on The Lost Crown.

“I’m extremely proud of our team’s work and passion at Ubisoft Montpellier to create a game that resonated with players and critics alike, and I am confident in its long-term success.

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.”

The “more Prince of Persia” could simply be a nod to the coming Sands of Time Remake, but it’s also vague enough that it could be a reference to another Lost Crown entry.

There’s also no response in the statement as to why the team was disbanded and moved onto other things. Though perhaps if you’re really cynical, you could take the nod to The Lost Crown’s “long-term success” as evidence that it has not experienced ‘short-term’ success, which is another way to say it didn’t sell very well in its initial year.

But the Montpellier team live to design another day, and if today’s reports of a Rayman Remake are true, they’re getting another crack at making a platformer and breathing new life into an old franchise.

Source – [Eurogamer]

23/10/2024: This article has been updated to include a quote from Ubisoft PR.