The Rogue Prince of Persia Preview: Hands-on and wallrunning

Another epic adventure with The Prince.

Evil Empire mightn’t have created Dead Cells, but it’s certainly established itself as a capable curator of the popular roguelike-Metroidvania title. Now, it’s showing what it can do in a similar vein and with an iconic franchise in The Rogue Prince of Persia… at the same time it’s asking for your help in getting to a finished product.

Announced today, The Rogue Prince of Persia will — at least initially — be a PC exclusive, opening into early access from 14 May. While the term “early access” might worry you, Evil Empire suggests it shouldn’t; the title is more or less there, functionality-wise, though it does have a “hard stop” in terms of its story, with more promised to come.

Said to have been inconception at Evil Empire since 2021 after a cheeky conversation with Ubisoft and described as a “fluid, fast-paced rush of combat and platforming,” The Rogue is a 2.5D roguelite side-scroller starring none other than The Prince himself, an overly confident… well, rogue… who finds his village under attack by the merciless Huns.

Equipped with a bola that resurrects him after death, The Prince is “strong in skill and weak at strategy” because of his unique gift; this is immediately shown off in an animated cutscene where he throws his body at a volley of arrows about to hit a young girl. Sure, she survives the attack… but her newfound protector is out for the count. In The Prince’s case, that particular recovery takes three full days, more than enough for the Huns to wreak havoc across the land.

While a bit green in terms of planning, The Prince does indeed have a wide skill set. A primary attack will use weapons like spears, swords, and daggers, while a secondary slot is reserved for ranged weaponry including a bow and arrow. Primary attacks can be chained into combos — which include a handy dodge button that sends our hero sailing through the air like a seasoned acrobat — and also generate much needed energy used for those long-distance strikes. A kick is useful to put some distance between you and your foes, but is far better when used to slam an enemy into another, dazing them both… or best yet, used to send a baddie off a cliff or into a spiked pit.

All this is paired with a wallrun that Evil Empire called “the centre of traversal”; provided there’s a solid surface behind out hero, The Prince will scamper diagonally, or even vertically to move across gaps or get to hard to reach ledges or handholds. It’s the usual case of easy enough to learn, but incredibly difficult to master; the moves I was pulling off were enough to progress, but they paled in comparison to the kinds of things Evil Empire was using as part of a hands-off showing.

While the initial setup may make The Rogue sound a lot like another Prince of Persia title of late — that being The Lost Crown — the two titles are pretty different. The Lost Crown is more like a combatitive Ori title, while The Rogue is quite obviously inspired by Dead Cells. It also features a very fluid, simple yet unique art style that helps to set it apart.

Another thing that’ll make The Rogue feel like it’s something quite different in the Persia universe are the different weapons and power-ups you can acquire. The latter come in the form of medallions, and in my short 25-minute playtime, I managed to put together some combinations that utterly destroyed my opponents. I first found a medallion that set enemies who I kicked into a fall on fire; paired with another medallion that gave my kicks a poison buff and I was very quickly setting toxic gas clouds alight with glee.

Things like medallions can be found by exploring, and small teleportation hubs littered through a run help the player to move around and check out every nook and cranny. I was rewarded for my inquisitive nature with a small dungeon of sorts; there, I successfully completed a bunch of tricky platforming to earn a valuable prize.

When I thought I’d acquired enough higher levelled weaponry, I decided to head to The Rogue‘s first boss, and was shortly thereafter destroyed in about two hits. My hubris sent me straight to The Oasis, The Prince’s main hub. It serves as a place to lick your wounds, restrategise, and restock to take another pass… which I sadly didn’t have time for in my preview, but greatly look forward to completing in May. 

Prince of Persia fans are eating well of late, and The Rogue will only reinforce that. Best yet, if diehard fans aren’t completely sold on what they see, early access means they have a chance to potentially correct that. Respectfully, I trust.

Get excited, because The Rogue Prince of Persia heads to Windows PC via early access on from 14 May.