Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands First-Look Preview (Xbox 360)

Though Prince of Persia series has been entertaining gamers for more than two decades with a number of different publishers, the most recent titles from Ubisoft have taken incredible strides. It has taken what started a cutting-edge 2-D platform game and turned it into a compelling series of 3-D action/adventure games with heavy combat and strategic elements. The franchise has grown to the point of getting the attention of Hollywood, which is readying a May theatrical release for “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the title role.

The next Prince of Persia video game, subtitled The Forgotten Sands, is also due to hit store shelves around this same time—but try not to worry that Ubisoft’s latest will fall victim to the dreaded “movie game” curse. Hopefully it’ll be enough of a deviation—in that it’ll only have “some synergy” to the movie and is in a similar timeline, according to Mike McIntyre, the game’s level design director at Ubisoft Montreal—that it can avoid what would have otherwise been a sure destiny of suckitude.

McIntyre told us in our recent visit to Ubisoft’s San Francisco-based headquarters that Forgotten Sands will take place between the Sands of Time and Warrior Within game stories (though not long after the conclusion of the events in Sands of Time). A brief overview of the story has the prince visiting an elder brother’s kingdom—and he arrives to find that the brother has seriously screwed up by accidentally releasing “a sand army.” Much of the gameplay involves the prince’s quest to set things right.

It will also feature many of the same gameplay mechanics and intense combat, so you’ll need to do a lot of acrobatic moves and wall runs to get through each level’s maze-like rooms, as well as do more than hold your own against numerous enemies with deft swordplay and gymnastic-tinged evasion techniques. (We’ll get deeper into the combat in a little bit and the new components that have been added, which are very exciting.)

You’ll also have access to the prince’s “rewind powers” and other magic that’s based on elements of nature. Forgotten Sands also won’t have an Elika, who saved your bacon every time you took a life-threatening tumble in 2008’s Prince of Persia; you’ll have to do the rewinds manually. In fact, it looks like Ubisoft wanted to crank up the level to which the prince’s time-bending powers will be used to create (and force you to solve) elaborate puzzles.

In one scene in the early beta version of Forgotten Sands that was demonstrated to us, McIntyre showed how time-slowing and magic skills turned a waterfall curtain coming down in one location into a wall solid enough that the prince could run across its face. As you can guess, the puzzles will become more complex at time goes on. At first, you need to us the water to cross otherwise impassible gaps. Later, you’ll have to time the turning on and off of the powers, so that you can run across some “solid” water, then quickly shut off the effect so you can dive through another curtain of liquid. We’ve heard and seen what the prince can do by manipulating the water element, but McIntyre briefly showed us one way how he can utilize the air element. While the effect almost appears like a quick porting from one spot to another within a short distance, McIntyre explained that it more a blowing effect that quickly pushes the prince from point to point. It’ll come in handy in combat situations, such as to escape a foe closing in on you, but also as a way to move through some puzzles. There’s no surprise that you’ll have to mix up your skills in some cases to coordinate a definitive solution out of a puzzle. He also said that the game is filled with secret areas, so you’ll have multiple reasons to scour the game world for puzzle solutions and new terrain.

The most stunning changes have come in the combat realm. At first I had to think McIntyre was exaggerating when he said that the multienemy battles will sometimes feature throngs of up to 50 combatants, but that will definitely be the case and we saw one such gigantic dust-up near the end of our demo. Ubisoft is definitely pacing the action, so, while you may be circled by baddies set on attacking you, you aren’t going to actually be attacked by all of them at once. More in the sense of a movie stunt fight, you’ll have a few attack at a time. Additionally, the incoming offense is telegraphed—in one case, a bunch of skeletons started advancing on the prince, and when one was about to make a strike, his sword glowed with flame. While I expect those aids to come throughout the game, you can be sure later in the game they’ll perhaps be more subtle or be visible with less delay before the actual attack strike.

Epic battles will be the hallmark of The Forgotten Sands.

While Forgotten Sands will definitely test your sword-wielding skills, it’ll equally test how you manage a crowd. For instance, when the ranks of skeletons were closing in on McIntyre, he used some of the familiar evasion leaps and rolls (some across the top of enemies), but also how combos can be used, as McIntyre put it, as “crowd control” to add some buffer distance between the prince and his attackers. You’ll effectively have to balance your own offensive attacks and defensive parries.

This crowd battle that McIntyre was demonstrating soon turned even more crowded when a miniboss appeared. He said that there will be lots of the larger, more powerful characters, and they’ll be a test of your skills. This particular one charged at you every now and again, and your defensive ability to evade him becomes a way to subdue him: If you can park near a wall or other firm object, when you move away from his charge, you might cause him to smash into the wall, which leaves him stunned for a few seconds, during which time you can start putting the hurt on him for a change. You’ll also have the ability to upgrade your combat skills by investing experience points, boosting the skills you choose into ones that will make you a force to be reckoned with. Of course, you’ll also need the bigger attacks as you encounter bigger bosses.

We’re looking forward to the new Prince of Persia, which seems to be on track to deliver another exciting adventure. We’ll definitely bring you more details, info and game media as the title gets closer to its release date, so stay tuned to TeamXbox.