Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

The game's title was thought up by the production team, but the original story built around the title proved impossible to work. The original draft had nine characters (including the Prince, two love interests, two villains, and two helper characters) representing different political factions, and the setting of the Prince's own palace home instead of in another kingdom. This storyline ultimately impeded other aspects of development, and so was scrapped. In starting over, the team returned to "The Sands of Time" title and concept. They decided upon four key elements for the game: "Unity of time and place", with the game taking place over twenty-four hours within the palace of Azad; "Acrobatics", referring to the gameplay and how the setting was constructed around this concept; "Combat", with the palace being filled with monsters to give the game and story a fast-paced feeling; and "Rewind", the ability to turn back and manipulate time.[10] One of the early decisions made by the production team was not to refer to Prince of Persia 3D in any degree in designing the gameplay, instead looking to the 1989 original for reference. They intended to capture the original feeling of platforming an adventure in a 3D environment. The Rewind mechanic began as a gameplay wish for the title, surviving the initial rewrite of the story and becoming key to both story and gameplay. The Dagger of Time and the Sands were both born from the need to explain this mechanic in-game. The initial concept was simply using the Dagger to rewind time and dispatch enemies, but its powers were gradually expanded into its current roster.[18] The main character's acrobatics were designed to be novel to the video game medium, inspired by similar stunts performed in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix. A video game which provided inspiration for the acrobatic feats of the Prince was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Elements such as using ladders as part of combat, and riding on a magic carpet or a horse were axed early in development. The Rewind function was suggested by the game's director Patrice Désilets based on experiences playing Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers, where he had wished to rewind after making a mistake rather than restarting the entire level.[17]

The game design was also influenced by Ico. According to Désilets, they "spent an entire day going through Ico, the entire team together sitting down, looking at it, playing it, discussing it, brainstorming" and they particularly liked "how the castle in Ico seems real and you always know where you are, so we tried to have this a little bit also in the second palace". It also influenced the interaction between the player and the lead female character, but with some changes. According to Désilets, Farah "has some behaviors to help you out, but we didn't want for her to become a key just like in Ico, a key to a door all the time".[25][26]

Pre-production was originally estimated at ten months, but ultimately extended to fourteen months. Each time a new movement or ability was created for the Prince, it required adjustments to multiple other systems, as leaving them alone would have damaged the game. They also needed to make adjustments to the enemy and partner artificial intelligence, and they did not have time to polish those systems. All this meant that the debugging started much later than originally scheduled. The Prince had over 780 scripted movements, far more than any other character in the game. This caused problems with creating the movements for other characters.[15] To make the character movements realistic, the team used motion capture to animate their movements.[27] Art director Raphael Lacoste did not join the team until July 2002, well into the game's production, resulting in multiple delays in creating the game's environments. This issue was compounded by the need to produce a demo for the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo, then to deliver an entire game at the same if not a higher quality than the demo.[15] Each environment needed to work for the Prince's set of movements and abilities: the work needed involved checking each rewind sequence, and each of the Prince's movement in and effect on the environment worked. These issues were compounded by the late delivery of environmental maps. In hindsight, producer Yannis Mallat lamented the fact that they did not have enough time to work out the problems caused by these issues. Despite these problems, other parts of production including play-testing, management of creative tools, and the integrated testing system worked smoothly. A cited example was the team discovering a tester that was good at finding severe bugs, so they included her in one of their testing groups, giving her a development kit she could use to sort out those bugs. This was replicated, and managed to greatly increase the amount of bugs that could be found and fixed. The development team's enthusiasm was also high, which enabled the problems during development to be overcome.[15] During the aftermath of E3, the team considered release The Sands of Time as two games so they could include all the desired content, but the idea was dropped. Another element that needed to be cut after the demo was a griffin boss that would appear three times during the Prince's journey.[17]

The game used an updated version of the company's Jade engine, designed for Beyond Good & Evil. When the team saw the capacities of the Jade engine, they decided to use it for The Sands of Time. For The Sands of Time, the team made improvements to the engine by adding additional walking and running animations, enabling smoother character movement. They also made custom animations for the character. The engine made editing and fine-tuning the game very easy due to its easy-to-use tools. Using this as a base, they were able to focus on rapid integration of new elements into the game, and were also able to do quick testing and adjustments. The team developed "substance" and "glow" systems, which respectively enabled natural movements of cloth and gave the lightning effects a "magical" feel.[28] The way the engine was structured, with all assets in a single accessible folder, proved problematic when alterations needed to be made or new features added, as the team size meant too many people were accessing the engine and were causing data to be overwritten, files to be corrupted, and the whole system to crash. They attempted to solve the problem using a "data monkey" solution which would allow for simultaneous access, but it came late in development and they did not risk making such a radical change to the system. Instead, they set up a file server to manage check-in times, which could allow for management of access and prioritisation of critical work.[15]

Jordan Mechner, scenario writer and game designer for The Sands of Time, at WonderCon 2010.

Mechner created the scenario and wrote the game's script.[10] While doing his research for the script, Mechner read a translation of the Shahnameh, an epic poem written by Ferdowsi between the 10th and 11th century. Reading it through helped Mechner visualise the new Prince as a more mature character than the original. Despite this, Mechner felt that the character could not fully shed the "happy-go-lucky" elements of One Thousand and One Nights. In retrospect, Mechner also felt that this inability to resolve this inherent conflict gave the character his charm. Mechner also included specific references in the Prince's dialogue to stories from the Shahnameh.[4] The story and the Prince were created for newcomers to the series. The main scenario was based around second chances, while an unstated anti-war theme was also included by Mechner and showcased in the game's opening level.[4][10] Mechner created the Dagger of Time as a combined gameplay and narrative device within the four core concepts created by the team. Its acquisition by the Prince was directly inspired by the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which had previously inspired his portrayal of the Prince in the original Prince of Persia. The palace of Azad was crafted to be the Prince's "playground", while some scenes which developed the Prince's portrayal (the opening attack on the Maharaja's palace, activating Azad's traps on the instructions of a deranged guard) were deliberately meant to be morally dubious to the player while increasing empathy with the character.[10]

Mechner's main preoccupation for this new storyline was keeping the narrative simple and engaging, using his preferred writing style of keeping cutscenes short and working as much of the story as possible into the gameplay. He also aimed to mix narrative and gameplay genres that might normally clash with one-another. The three main characters he created were the hero (the Prince), the villain (the Vizier) and the love interest and sidekick (Farah). Two non-playable authority figures (the Prince's father Shahraman and the Sultan of Azad) were included to add weight to the Prince's burden as they were transformed into monsters by the Sands. The three artefacts each character used (the Dagger, Farah's medallion and the Vizier's staff) were created to explain their survival of the Sands' release, with the Dagger also becoming integral to gameplay. The Prince's narration was both difficult and satisfying for Mechner. It needed to be written to work on two levels: first to be understandable for first-time players, and to gain greater significance upon future playthroughs. The narration also served to give gentle hints to the player, and expand upon the setting and add depth to the experience. Among his cited reference points for the narration were the 1940s version of The Thief of Bagdad, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and films such as Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard. The Prince's interactions with Farah were also an important factor. As part of the character interaction, Farah was deliberately designed not to be a perfect archer, sometimes hitting the Prince if he strayed into her line of fire. Despite this, unspecified features planned for her needed to be cut.[10]

Yuri Lowenthal voiced the Prince in The Sands of Time, returning for subsequent games set within the continuity.

The music for The Sands of Time was composed by Stuart Chatwood of the Canadian rock band The Tea Party.[2][29] Chatwood was chosen for the role as Ubisoft wanted music that had Persian elements in it to fit the setting, while not being pure Persian music. When he was approached, Chatwood expanded his music library as part of his research. To achieve the desired effect, rock elements were mixed with Middle Eastern music and melodies, along with Indian elements. Chatwood used different instruments, including an Indian tabla and strings, along with vocal tracks by Cindy Gomez and Maryem Tollar.[2][29] A soundtrack album for the game, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Original Soundtrack, was released in Japan on 20 October 2004 by Scitron Digital Content.[30] Tracks from the game were included in an album featuring music from both The Sands of Time and its two sequels Warrior Within and The Two Thrones. The album was released on 1 December 2005 as a pre-order bonus for the PS2 and Xbox versions of The Two Thrones.[31] A larger compilation album featuring music from the three games was released digitally by Ubisoft on January 3, 2011.[32]

For the sound effects, the team worked with sound company Dane Tracks to create most of the game's sound effects, with the rest being done by Ubisoft Montreal. To make the enemies in the game stand out, the sound team mixed "organic and evil" sound effects with whispering sounds, rather than using sound effects associated with the undead.[2] Mechner supervised the game's voice recording.[16] The recorded took place at L. A. Vox and Ubisoft Montreal's sound studios.[33] One of the unconventional choices made by the team was not to halt gameplay during in-game dialogue, meaning players could miss large portions of character interaction. In addition to story-based dialogue and banter, context-specific dialogue was written for certain situations. Over one thousand lines of dialogue were written, though over half of them were cut. To help with voice recording, the recording team created a graph to help the actors playing the Prince and Farah time their exchanges correctly. Aside from some exceptions which played in sequence, all comments made by Farah when the Prince did a specific thing were stand-alone responses.[10]

The actors were chosen for their roles based on how well their matched the characters.[33] The Prince was voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, whose performance was proven popular and would return to voice the character in future games set after The Sands of Time. Speaking in a 2008 interview, Lowenthal felt "that [he] in a way originated that role".[34] Farah was voiced by Joanna Wasick.[33] Lowenthal and Wasick recorded their dialogue in separate studios.[35]

By the end of 2003, sales of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time had reached 2 million copies, and Ubisoft highlighted the game's success in Europe in a quarterly business report.[36] Europe accounted for 1.1 million sales by February 2004;[37] worldwide sales rose to 2.4 million units by the end of March.[38] During its North American debut, the game suffered from poor sales: by December, the PS2 version had sold 218,000 copies, the Xbox version 128,000 copies, and the GameCube version 85,000 copies. Its combined sales since release at that time totaled 272,000 (PS2), 172,000 (Xbox), and 100,000 copies (GameCube). It was speculated that its sales were negatively affected by the concurrent release of Beyond Good & Evil, alongside other prominent releases at the time. In response to this, Ubisoft offered copies of their other games free with purchases of The Sands of Time, providing a boost to sales.[39] By July 2006, the game's PlayStation 2 version alone had sold 700,000 copies in North America, bringing an estimated revenue of $24 million.[40] During its week of release in Japan, the game reached seventh place in the charts, selling 14,000 copies. This was noted as being high for a western game released in Japan. By the end of 2004, it had sold 26,116 copies.[24][41] It received a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[42] indicating sales of at least 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[43] As of 2014, the game has sold over 14 million copies worldwide, across all platforms.[44]

The Sands of Time received critical acclaim upon launch. Edge said that, despite difficulty spikes caused by respawning enemies, "the game cannot be commended highly enough".[6] IGN's Matt Casamassina found the entire experience enjoyable, saying that "whether you're a diehard Prince of Persia fan or somebody with a mild interest in action-adventures, The Sands of Time is a must own -- a soon-to-be-classic worthy of a permanent place in your collection".[3] 1UP.com, while pointing out the camera control as "tricky", said that the game "will make your chest explode if you've got a heart condition (in a good way, of course)".[53] GameSpot's Greg Kasavin called it "a game that can be recommended wholeheartedly",[5] and the publication named it the best game of November 2003 for GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox.[80] Both Eurogamer and Official PlayStation Magazine positively compared the game's aesthetics and presentation to Ico.[57][77] Francesca Reyes of Official Xbox Magazine gave the game a good review, praising the story and general gameplay, but finding the combat difficult at times and lack of new skills. In closing, she praised the game's lasting appeal: "When the whole thing is over, it's perfectly timed to leave you wanting more. It's a stunning and rare achievement that makes you feel happy to be a gamer".[78] Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu gave the PS2 version a good review, saying that the action was smooth and challenging, bearing similarities to the original Prince of Persia, and one reviewer found the Prince "colourful".[58]

The PC version shared much of the console version's praise, but the controls and responsiveness of the camera caused criticism.[52][64][73] The Game Boy Advance version garnered lower scores than the console and PC versions due to its scaled-down gameplay and presentation, but was still generally praised as a competent port of the game.[7][66][59][81][71] Nintendo Power said that "acrobatic moves and inventive traps have never been as free-flowing as they are in The Sands of Time".[75] Reviewing the mobile version, IGN reviewer Levi Buchanan was impressed by the company's adaptation of the console game's basic actions and atmosphere, giving it a score of 9.5 out of 10.[21] 1UP reviewer Corey Padnos was pleased with the Prince's acrobatic performance and the game's general performance, while lamenting the lack of the time-based mechanics of the main games and the lack of plot.[8]

At E3 2003, The Sands of Time was named as "Game of the Year".[82] The game was named as Editor's Choice by GameSpot and IGN.[3][5] At the 2003 Game Critics Awards, the game was awarded as "Best Action/Adventure Game".[83] The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, at its awards ceremony in 2004, recognized Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as "Console Game of the Year", "Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year", and "Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year"; it was also awarded for "Outstanding Innovation in Computer Gaming", as well as outstanding achievement in "Game Design", "Visual Engineering", "Animation", and "Gameplay Engineering".[84] At the 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards, the game won the "Excellence in Game Design" and "Excellence in Programming" awards; it was also nominated in the "Game of the Year" and "Excellence in Visual Arts" categories.[85]

In 2009, Official Nintendo Magazine ranked it the 86th best game available on Nintendo platforms. The staff praised the developer's successful transition from 2D to 3D.[86] IGN and Edge both named it among their 100 greatest games of all time in 2005 and 2007 respectively.[87][88] Computer and Video Games placed it in its 2007 list of the 101 best PC games ever.[89] In 2010, GamePro chose it as the 13th best PS2 game of all time.[90]

A remake of the game, developed by Indian studios Ubisoft Mumbai and Ubisoft Pune, was announced at Ubisoft Forward 2020 and was originally scheduled for release on 21 January 2021, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.[95] Lowenthal returned to voice the Prince, while Farah was voiced by Supinder Wraich.[35] The announcement trailer drew criticism from fans who considered the game's graphics to be lackluster, particularly as it was being developed using the newest iteration of Ubisoft Anvil. Ubisoft responded by stating that the visual style was an intentional choice, as they had wanted it to be "unique ... to make this game standout from other games" due to its fantasy elements.[96][97][98] The release of the game was initially delayed by Ubisoft to 18 March,[99] before being postponed indefinitely to "deliver a remake that feels fresh while remaining faithful to the original".[100][101] In its quarterly financial report of 2021, Ubisoft stated the game was expected to be out during its 2022–2023 fiscal year.[102] By May 2022, Ubisoft Montreal was taking over development of the remake.[103] A month later Ubisoft once again delayed the game, this time stating that the company was no longer targeting a release during its 2022–2023 fiscal year.[104]