Leaked screenshot could be of next Prince of Persia game

The Prince of Persia series of games have been mostly absent in this console generation, with exceptions such as the 2007 Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands. The latter was released mostly as a tie-in to the Prince of Persia movie at the time. Recently, a screenshot that shows what is possibly the next game in the Prince of Persia series has been leaked.

The new screenshot  below was posted on the official Prince of Persia forum. There isn't much information about the game, except that the setting appears to be middle eastern and there are a few lines at the bottom. The word of code at the bottom of the image has POP_ZERO_2 as the assumed file name. Whether or not this is a screenshot of what may be the next Prince of Persia game is unknown yet. Another tiny but interesting detail in the image is that the game seems to be running on DirectX 11. This could be part of Ubisoft's secret development for the next generation of consoles.

This may be the next generation of the Prince of Persia games

The Prince of Persia series had been Ubisoft’s flagship series during the PlayStation 2 era. The most famous and critically acclaimed game in the series has been Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which featured an unnamed Prince who comes into the possession of a dagger that allows him to alter time. This dagger also causes the entire palace to get possessed by the sands and turns everyone into zombies, and it is up to the Prince and a girl named Farah to undo the situation.

The sequel to the Sands of Time, titled Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within, was not as popular. While the game brought many improvements to the platforming and combat sections of the game, it was panned by critics for turning the Prince from a generally happy and quick witted guy to a very dark character with a dark storyline. The game details the Prince’s attempts to escape punishment from a creature known as the Dahaka, the guardian of time, for changing the flow of time due to events in the Sands of Time. The Prince aims to go back in time to the creation of the sands and stop them from being created.

The last game in the PlayStation 2 trilogy was Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. This is widely regarded as at least equally as good as the Sands of Time, as it saw the return of the quick witted exchanges between the Prince and Farah. The game has the Prince come back to Persia to reclaim his kingdom after having dealt with the Dahaka in The Warrior Within, only to find Persia burning and under the rule of the Vizier from the Sands of Time. The game retains the free form combat system from The Warrior Within and adds a new stealth kill mechanic that allows the Prince to sneak up behind enemies and quickly kill them in flashy ways.

After a few years of silence, Ubisoft released a reboot for the series, simply titled Prince of Persia in 2007. The game was vastly different from the previous games in both looks and gameplay. The graphics were changed to a cell-shaded style that gave the game a storybook look. The gameplay was changed to have the platforming “flow” better. The new Prince could easily run on walls, jump to another wall and continue running. This was impossible to do in the previous games. The game also changed the combat from the previous game. Instead of battling hordes of enemies, the player instead fought against single enemies, one on one, in fighting game style. The game had a mixed reaction from critics. Panned by some who thought the game to be too easy, as it was impossible to mess up the platforming, but celebrated by some for being a great gateway into hardcore gaming for casual gamers.