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Christophe
17 Sep, 2004

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: Q&A session

PS2 News | Bertrand Helias, producer of the Prince's next game, discusses blending gameplay styles, slicing curtains and Hong Kong movies.
There's been few surprises quite as pleasant in this generation of hardware as 2003's Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. By combining some quite excellent puzzles with a hero capable of deft acrobatics with environments as far as the eye could see, Ubisoft's adventure game quickly became a firm PALGN favourite. And with the sequel Prince of Persia: Warrior Within due to arrive on PAL PlayStation 2s, Xboxes and Gamecubes in November, PALGN saw this as an ideal opportunity to grab a brief Q&A session with the sequel's producer, Bertrand Helias.

After the Game Stars Live showing, we were under the impression that combat was the major focus of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Is that a true reflection, or did you work on other gameplay elements as well?

Yes. The new Free Form Fighting system has been the core of the development efforts of the game. We wanted players to get the best combat experience currently available in this genre.

But we also know that the success of the Prince of Persia is due to its mix of gameplay styles and we wanted to keep this, and even make it more engrossing. Warrior Within's gameplay will keep the classic components: combat, acrobatic navigation and enigmas to solve. We know people like to explore environments as well as use their brain in a Prince of Persia game and they will have huge opportunities to do that in Warrior Within.

What is the balance between these different gameplay elements?

Well, the story of Warrior Within is the one of a man fighting for his life, to defy a fate that has already been written - so, combat will naturally be the core of the experience. The combat will be very diverse, offering a large variety of combos, enemies' behavior and tactics ... But what we mostly wanted was to make sure that navigation puzzle solving and combat would be embedded together.

So in Warrior Within, these gameplay elements are not built in sequences, but really tied together: you will have to navigate while fighting, chase enemies on beams structure, trigger a mechanism to kill enemies etc ... I believe this unique blend makes the experience absolutely enjoyable.

Tell us about the new navigation moves that you implemented in PoPWW. Why did you add these moves?

Our initial desire since conception is to provide an experience that would be close to swashbuckling and Hong Kong movies. Of course, this is true in combat (look at the new fighting moves in previous trailers like the new wall attacks or the moves around pillars).

But this is also visible in navigation: for instance you will now be able to go down walls by stabbing your sword in huge curtains and slicing them down; you can also do longer walling by using ropes etc ... eventually I think players will really enjoy this new freedom in navigation just as in combat.

Related Prince of Persia: Warrior Within Content

The Prince doubles his act
28 Dec, 2004 Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within has doubled its predessors sales in just two weeks.
TGS: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - New screenshots and in-game footage.
25 Sep, 2004 Ubisoft takes us through the all-new free-form fighting system in detail.
GAME STARS LIVE: Hands-on with Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
04 Sep, 2004 The Prince's second outing is certainly a looker, though it's appearance in London this week posed more questions than it answered.
1 Comment
7 years ago
Nice, can't wait to pick this one up. Interesting that he made the comment that you will have to fight enemies while navigating..
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  Pre-order or buy:
    PALGN recommends: www.Play-Asia.com

Australian Release Date:
  Out Now
European Release Date:
  Out Now
Publisher:
  Ubisoft
Developer:
  Ubisoft Montreal
Players:
  1

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