Prince of Persia is one of the longest-running videogame franchises. Last thursday, October 3, the series celebrated its 35 anniversary. We have to go back to October 3, 1989, to the release of Prince of Persia for Apple II, a very cinematic action-platformer, made using rotoscoping techonology.
Jordan Mechner, its creator, is still very active today, even if he changed his career from video game designer to graphic novelist and artist. In fact, his latest graphic novel, in which he made his debut as an artist as well as writer, is an autobiographical graphic novel where the development of his games plays a big part.
“I tell the behind-the-scenes story in my 1980s “The Making of Prince of Persia” journals, and in my new graphic novel memoir “Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family”, he posted on Twitter.
Originally released in 2023 in French, his autobiographical graphic novel was released this year in English, and can be found in his website.
Ubisoft will look back at the history of the franchise this month
Prince of Persia had two sequels, one in 1993 and another in 1999. In 2001, Ubisoft bought the rights to the franchise and launched Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which had input from Mechner (and is now being remade). After that, it became one of Ubisoft’s main franchises until the series came to a stop after 2010.
That all changed this year, when Ubisoft Montpellier released Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, a return to the roots, 2D action-platform metroidvania, that became Ubisoft’s best rated game in years.
In homage to the series, Ubisoft has released a lengthy feature exploring the original’s Prince of Persia history, and told us to “stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes stories from throughout the Prince of Persia series”.