Following the disbanding of the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s development team, Larian Studios’ publishing director, Michael Douse, blamed Ubisoft for the game’s poor financial performance.
Larian Studios’ publishing director, Michael Douse
Douse said Ubisoft’s persistent boycott of Steam was partly the reason why the sales of The Lost Crown were low. The Larian executive believes things would have been different if the game had launched on day one on Steam instead of on the Ubisoft store.
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“The last notable game on their platform was arguably Far Cry 6 in 2021,” Douse posted on X. “The Crew, Mirage, and Avatar came in 2023 and didn’t perform, so you can assume subscriptions were at a lull when PoP released by 2024. Which means people wouldn’t be launching their store all too much.”
“If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong. It’s such a broken strategy. The hardest thing is to make a 85+ game — it is much, much easier to release one. It just shouldn’t be done as it was.”
According to reports, some members of The Lost Crown team pitched a sequel to Ubisoft which turned into a pitch for two DLCs. However, Ubisoft turned the idea down for the reason that a sequel would cannibalize the sales of the first game which was already below expectation.
Ubisoft confirmed the reassignment of The Lost Crown development team
After it was revealed by YouTuber Gautoz on Origami, a French YouTube channel, that Ubisoft has disbanded the team behind The Lost Crown, the game’s senior producer Abdelhal Elguess sent a message to Eurogamer that provided further clarification on the matter.
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“Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is now at the end of its Post-Launch roadmap with three free content updates and one DLC that released in September,” said Elguess. “We are now focusing on making the game available to more players: it was recently launched on Steam, and will be available on Mac by this winter.”
“Most of the team members who worked on Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown have shifted to other projects that will benefit from their expertise. We know players have a love for this brand and Ubisoft is excited to bring more Prince of Persia experiences in the future.”
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s reception was generally favorable. The game received an average Metascore of 87 on Xbox Series X, 86 on PS5, and 85 on PC.
