Ubisoftowns many iconic games and series, from Far Cry to Rainbow Six.Assassin’s CreedandPrince of Persiaare two of their most popular IPs. They are also pretty similar in that both series contain action-adventure titles and plenty of parkour.
Their similarities might be why the two series haven’t really been around at the same time for too long. Prince of Persia was at its peak in the ’90s and 2000s, whereas Assassin’s Creed began in the late 2000s and really took off in the 2010s. In fact, it seemed like Ubisoft started to veer away from Prince of Persia to focus on Assassin’s Creed. But did the two series have a closer connection than that? Here is the full story.
Creating An Assassin-Focused Prince of Persia Game
Alex Drouin, who became the animation director for Assassin’s Creed’s Altair,told Polygonthat after Sands of Time, they were initially thinking ofmaking a Prince of Persia game in an open-world environment.So, it would combine the openness of an open world with the parkour movement style that Prince of Persia was known for.
However, after recently finishing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, the creative director of the series at the time, Patrice Desilets, hadgrown tired of the protagonist always being a Prince, ashe told Edge. He wanted to create another sort of main character.
This is when he remembered a book about secret societies that he once read. In it, it told the story of a group called the Asasiyun, which would later be renamed the Assassins. This is where he got the idea to build a Prince of Persia game around an Assassin instead of a Prince.
How It Became An Assassin’s Creed Game
The original idea for this Assassin-focused Prince of Persia game revolved around the idea that you werean Assassin looking after a baby prince, according to the pre-production art director, Nicolas Cantin.
Patrice Desilets’s team was clearly more into the Assassin’s story than the Prince’s, though. So, while developing the idea,the Prince slowly became less important to the gameand the people making it.
However, Desilets claims that he didn’t outright suggest to Ubisoft that it should be a new IP. But over time, itbecame a lot more about Assassins, and they managed to convince Ubisoft that was the correct direction to go in.
For some time during development, the game was titled Prince of Persia: Assassins.
Eventually,the name Prince of Persia was removed from the title entirely, and marketing came up with the name Assassin’s Creed. So, that’s how a Prince of Persia launched the Assassin’s Creed series.
