Ubisoft’s cancellation of the Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time remake blindsided even the game’s voice actors, as images from the project leak online.
The remake of Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time has been plagued by problems ever since it was announced in 2020, between poorly received trailers and multiple development reboots, but after six years of work no one expected Ubisoft to just end up cancelling it.
Ubisoft made the announcement earlier this month as part of a wider restructuring at the company, which included the cancellation of six games in total (with the other five being unannounced) and the delay of seven others.
The cancellation came as a huge surprise and, based on a new video, even people who worked on the game had no advanced warning of what was going on.
This comes from a video entitled ‘The Most Devastating Moment Of My Acting Career’ by actor Eman Ayaz, who is believed to have voiced Farah in the remake. She doesn’t name the project specifically, or mention her assumed role (she mentions she’s still under NDA), but the timing and circumstances she describes all match up – with the video being posted several days after the game’s cancellation.
According to reports, Ayaz responded to comments linking her to the role, although these have since all been deleted. Again, likely because of the NDA.
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‘Last week I experienced the most devastating moment of my acting career,’ Ayaz said in the video, explaining how her brother had told her about the project’s cancellation via a news article online, asking if she was OK. ‘That’s where I read that it has been shelved forever. I was just in total shock.’
Ayaz mentions she filmed marketing material for the project around ‘two months ago’, suggesting it was close to being released, and was first cast for the ‘life-changing role’ around three years ago.
Previous rumours have also suggested that the game was very close to release, with online source xj0nathan claiming that it was ‘99.99% finished’ when it was cancelled. The implication from Ubisoft is that the remake, and the other cancelled games, were not good enough, but what’s leaked of the game so far suggests a lot of money and effort was going into it.
Ayaz describes the role as the ‘best performance of her career’, one that now ‘nobody is going to see’. ‘The worst part is, you can’t really openly grieve about it either,’ she added. ‘It’s just as if it never existed, which is a hard thing to wrap your head around when it’s been your life for so long.’
While we might never see Ayaz’s performance, details from the project have leaked online. An alleged image of the prince himself was leaked by xj0nathan, with the character’s appearance appearing closer in style to a Disney film.
Similarly, concept art has emerged via an internal Ubisoft presentation from 2024, showing various locations. The slides outline the goals of the remake too, with plans to ‘rebuild’ levels ‘from the ground up’, revamp the combat system, add ‘more effective time powers’ and make Farah ‘a true ally’.
According to these documents, there were also plans to implement new features, including ‘air control’, ‘new acrobatic and cooperative moves’, two new locations, a music score, and ‘new puzzle elements and added physics’.
If all of this is true, it sounds like it was a pretty ambitious remake, which might explain why it became such a headache for Ubisoft. Even so, it’s painful to read about what could have been, considering the original is one of the greatest action games of all time.
With the remake off the table, it’s unclear what Ubisoft has planned for the future of Prince Of Persia as a whole. The company disbanded the team behind Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown in 2024, with the last title in the series being last year’s spin-off The Rogue Prince Of Persia.
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