Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Nobody had this on their bingo card. Ubisoft, a publisher known for sprawling open worlds and live-service ambitions, released a tightly designed, hand-crafted metroidvania that plays like it was made by a team that lives and breathes the genre. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown puts you in the role of Sargon, one of a group of elite warriors called the Immortals, chasing a kidnapped prince through Mount Qaf, a mythological stronghold where time bends and the architecture defies logic. What unfolds over 15 to 20 hours is one of the strongest action platformers in recent memory.

The reception was overwhelmingly positive among players who actually picked it up. That qualifier matters, because commercial performance didn’t match the quality on display. People who played it couldn’t stop recommending it. People who skipped it, well, they missed something special.

Precision Combat and Powers Worth Earning

Combat in The Lost Crown is fast, aggressive, and deeply satisfying. Sargon’s moveset starts lean but grows into something formidable, with new abilities layering on top of each other to create a combat system that feels incredible by the midpoint. Parrying is tight and responsive, rewarding precise timing with devastating counterattacks that never get old across the full runtime. Boss fights are the highlight, ranging from pattern-based duels to multi-phase spectacles that demand mastery of every tool in your arsenal.

The time-based powers deserve special mention. As you progress through Mount Qaf, Sargon gains abilities tied to temporal manipulation that transform both combat and exploration. These aren’t gimmicks. Each new power opens up previously inaccessible areas in ways that feel logical and satisfying, the classic metroidvania “aha” moment delivered consistently throughout the game. The way combat abilities double as traversal tools shows a design team that understood the genre’s best traditions.

Platforming sits right alongside combat as a core pillar. The movement is precise and responsive, with wall jumps, dashes, and air maneuvers chaining together fluidly. Challenge rooms scattered throughout Mount Qaf test your platforming skills in isolation, and some of the late-game sequences demand combinations of every traversal ability you’ve earned. The difficulty curve hits a sweet spot where most encounters feel challenging but fair.

Map design ties everything together. Mount Qaf is an excellent metroidvania world, densely packed with secrets, shortcuts, and environmental storytelling. Each biome has a distinct visual identity and gameplay flavor, from lush gardens to corrupted time-warped ruins. The interconnected layout rewards exploration and backtracking in equal measure, and a clever screenshot-based map marker system lets you photograph areas to return to later. It’s an elegant solution to the genre’s oldest navigation problem.

The Narrative Stumble and Difficulty Gaps

Story is where The Lost Crown loses some players. The setup, Immortals pursuing a kidnapped prince into a mythological realm, works fine as motivation. But the execution leans heavily on exposition dumps and character interactions that don’t always land. Sargon’s fellow Immortals receive varying levels of development, and some plot turns telegraph themselves well in advance. Persian mythology provides a rich backdrop, but the game sometimes explains when it should show.

Difficulty pacing has some rough spots, particularly in the middle hours. A handful of boss encounters spike dramatically above the surrounding content, creating walls that can stall progress for extended periods. The game offers accessibility options that help, but players who want the intended challenge sometimes found themselves stuck on a single fight for longer than felt reasonable, only to breeze through the next several areas.

Backtracking, an inherent part of the metroidvania formula, occasionally tips into tedium. While the map design is strong overall, some ability gates require lengthy return trips through areas you’ve already cleared. Fast travel points help but aren’t always positioned ideally. Late-game traversal abilities ease this significantly, but the mid-game stretch can feel like it’s padding the runtime.

The amulet system, which functions as a build customization layer, is serviceable but doesn’t reach its full potential. Equipping different amulets lets you tweak Sargon’s abilities, but the most useful combinations become obvious fairly quickly, and many amulets feel underpowered compared to the standouts. It’s a fine system that could have been great with more impactful choices.

A Genre Entry That Stands on Merit

The most impressive thing about The Lost Crown is that it doesn’t lean on nostalgia. Previous Prince of Persia games were beloved for different reasons, and this entry doesn’t try to recapture that magic. Instead, it builds something new within a proven genre framework and executes at an extremely high level. It competes with the best metroidvanias not because of its brand name but because the combat is sharp, the world design is smart, and the progression loop is compelling from start to finish.

Should You Play Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown?

If you enjoy metroidvanias at all, this is close to essential. The combat is among the best the genre has offered, the world design rewards curiosity, and the power progression delivers that constant sense of growing capability that defines great entries in this space. It’s also an excellent entry point for players new to metroidvanias, thanks to adjustable difficulty and the map marker system that reduces frustration.

Pass on it if you’re primarily interested in narrative-driven experiences, because the story serves the gameplay rather than the other way around. Players who bounce off precision-based combat with strict timing windows may also find the boss encounters more punishing than fun. And if you’re expecting a traditional Prince of Persia experience with wall-running time rewind, this is a different beast entirely.

The Verdict on The Lost Crown

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is one of the best metroidvanias in years, full stop. Ubisoft Montpellier delivered a game that respects the genre’s foundations while carving its own identity through outstanding combat and clever time-based abilities. It deserved a bigger audience than it got, and players who discover it now are in for one of 2024’s most rewarding action experiences. Mount Qaf is worth every hour you’ll spend inside it.