Sometimes it feels like you can’t move five feet without tripping over another roguelike these days. At this point I’m basically trapped in one myself, endlessly starting new runs. In fairness to The Rogue Prince of Persia, it’s actually a 2025 game, but has recently received a physical console release on PS5, Xbox Series X and Switch, hence why I’m here playing it now.
Available On: PS5, Xbox Series S/X, Switch
Reviewed On: PS5
Developed By: Evil Empire
Published By: Ubisoft/ U&I Entertainment
Review code provided by the publisher.
The dastardly huns, who are employing some kind of freaky-deaky corrupting magic, have invaded Persia and ransacked the place, so our titular Prince squares off against their leader, Nogai. After getting his ass kicked, the Prince awakens at the Oasis on the morning of the 3rd day of the invasion. It turns out the Prince has a magic amulet of his own that brings him back to this point every time he dies, so now the Prince needs to rescue his family and stop the invasion of his homeland by banging his head off the metaphorical wall known as roguelike progression.
That means dying a lot and gradually growing in strength by using XP points to permanently boost health, give yourself death defiance and various other little upgrades. Soul Cinders are harvested from the Huns you decimate along the way and have to be saved at the start of each new biome or else are lost to time, and those can be used to unlock new weapons and medallions for future runs. It’s all very standard at this point, and The Rogue Prince of Persia doesn’t bring a whole lot new to the table in terms of progression systems. Although I do appreciate this spin on the classic Prince of Persia time-control stuff.
The game’s best feature is undoubtedly the parkour, because what’s a Prince of Persia game if you can’t replicate the The Office parkour meme? It’s not like the game offers a heap of tools: wallrunning, a dash and a jump. But it’s the implementation that makes it special. The controls take a little bit of getting used to, but once mastered it’s impressive how smooth and fun it is. You can wallrun at any angle on the background walls, then jump, dash and wallrun up a side wall, jump again into a background run and combo it all together infinitely. Nail the timing charges up the Prince’s breath meter, making him quicker and boosting his damage output, so the game is nudging you toward smoothly freerunning into fights like a fucking monkey dropping out of a tree onto an unsuspecting sucker.
Combat is a bit less exciting: whack things with one button, dodge with another and execute special moves by holding down attack. Oh, and you can kick fools in the face, too, and there’s the tool button which unleashes bows, grappling hooks or whatever else you have equipped at the time. None of it is bad and it flows well enough, plus there’s a good selection of weapons on offer, but compared to the parkour the fighting didn’t hold my interest as much. That’s a problem in a game like this where you are driven to kill everything in order to grab XP for permanent progression points.
I do like how the level system works. As you explore you’ll find labelled doors that lead to the next section of the world, and more will be gradually uncovered as you move through the story. Quite often, you’ll need to head to specific areas, and will sometimes even have to grab an item in the early stages and carry somewhere else, which takes up your tool slot. It’s hardly a groundbreaking system, but it feels nicely paced. In fact, the whole game is paced well. Sometimes roguelikes can become incredibly grindy, but The Rogue Prince of Persia moves fast in both its gameplay and overall progression, so there’s almost always a new place to check out or objective to achieve.
Overall, it probably only took me 6-8 hours to beat the main boss the first time around. Then the grind set in a little more because to achieve the real ending you need to find and beat the bastard 7 times, and do a few other things. Around 15 hours if you’re a decent roguelike player, a bit longer if you have the survival skills of a dodo with a concussion.
I tip my hat to the presentation as well. It’s a hand-drawn ligne claire style with bold outlines and vibrant flats. Sounds artsy, right? To put it more simply, clean lines, bright colours and a Saturday morning cartoon vibe. And that’s mixed with a banger of a soundtrack that mixes modern-day electronic beats with classic Persian instruments like the setar. The result is a bouncy, head-bopping soundtrack. It’s some seriously good shit. Hell, it’s probably one of the few times I would consider picking up the soundtrack itself and listening outside of playing the game.
In Conclusion…
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
A really solid effort and a fun spin on the classic IP. The parkour system is brilliantly smooth, building on the kind of sharp movement design Evil Empire honed while working on Dead Cells. Outside of that, though, there’s not a whole lot here that truly surprises. The story is forgettable, the combat is perfectly serviceable, and the progression sticks closely to roguelike convention.
The Rogue Prince of Persia doesn’t rewrite the rulebook, but its slick movement and stylish presentation make it well worth a run—particularly for diehard fans of the genre.
