At a glance: Brand new Prince of Persia to loose itself in time...or not.

The original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time team have recently announced new details on their new and upcoming Prince of Persia game that is in no way related to the Sands of time trilogy. Following is a list of new features you’ll be able to expect from this instalment, or should I say reinvention of the extremely popular series?:

• cel-shaded graphics with an "illustrative" visual style creating a "more poetic vision"

• Zoroastrian myth plot – epic in scale with a focus on healing the world, as in games like Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

• A mixture of open-ended and linear gameplay – The Prince will be able to choose which mission he would like to play in an open world environment, but as the missions starts they become linear to allow for the Prince’s usual aerobics

• A new spiked glove allowing the Prince to slide along and jump from vertical surfaces

• A less “God of War like” fighting system, with an emphasis on 1 Vs 1 duels with a dynamic camera

• A confrontational boss fight with distinctive characters dissimilar to those in the MGS series

• A secret “something” which will take the place of the time reversal ability from the past few games

So, with a whole new direction and a style which Creative director Jean-Christophe Guyot said that the Ubisoft management “knew we weren't going to make a second Assassin's Creed," he said. "However, they did raise their eyebrows a bit at the new, stylised artistic direction. They were worried the Americans wouldn't like it. There were many discussions, but they never said no to us." So lets hope that this sticks, because In concept this sounds like a fantastic way to bring back an old series without sticking too much to trodden formula.

My only personal worries are that the game may be considered as less of a mature title because of the new “poetic” artistic direction, so hopefully we’ll still be able to decapitate dudes; that cool-ass glove with a spike on the end I’m sure could deliver some grizzly fun.

Look for more information on the new Prince of Persia from the UbiDays event on the 28th and 29th of May, it’s going to be awesome!

--Tom Rhodes, 360Stage Editor--