Reports out of France say that the Prince of Persia franchise isn’t dead. In fact, it may just be turning back time to make a comeback. Rumours suggest that Ubisoft’s planned next game in the PoP franchise will see a 2D release in the same engine as the critically acclaimed Rayman Legends.

Le Portail du Jeu Video reports that their sources tell them that Ubisoft Montpellier will be developing the next Prince of Persia game.

Not much has been reported about the game apart from the fact that it will be a 2D game developed in the same UbiArt engine that powered Ubisoft Montpellier’s Rayman Legends. The thinking is that this will allow for more freedom with the animations that the Prince can do. The move to 2D won’t change some of the tricks introduced in the Sands of Time trilogy such as fancy sword tricks and parkour combat.

Since the franchise had been under Ubisoft’s ownership, it had been a Ubisoft Montreal property. However, following Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Ubi moved on to Assassin’s Creed as the company’s flagship franchise. They made a couple of attempts to reboot the franchise on the most recent generation of consoles with the stylized 2008 Prince of Persia and The Forgotten Sands game put chronologically between Sands of Time and Warrior Within.

The Sands of Time trilogy were some of my favourite games of that PS2/Xbox/GameCube generation. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is on my list of the top-five games of all-time. I even liked the not particularly fondly remembered PoP 2008. As you might be able to tell, I’m a bit of a Prince of Persia fan. As much as I loved the 3D PoP games, I’m willing to take a 2D PoP to get the franchise going again.

Source: Le Portail du Jeu Video