The Ubisoft Montpellier team behind Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has reportedly been disbanded after unsuccessfully pitching a sequel and some other ideas. This purported turn of events suggests that Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown didn't sell well enough.

Ubisoft Montpellier was originally founded as Ubi Pictures in 1994. This makes it one of the oldest Ubisoft studios in existence. As of October 2024, the company's headcount is estimated to be around 400. Its staff is divided into multiple teams that either pursue their own projects or assist other divisions or Ubisoft studios with theirs.

One of those teams has now been disbanded, French journalist and YouTuber Gautoz reports (via TheGamer), citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Specifically, the company is said to have broken up the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown team because its latest game underperformed commercially. While no official numbers have ever been given by Ubisoft, a January 2024 report from Insider Gaming claimed that Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown sold only 300,000 units in its first two weeks on the market, which was implied to have been well below Ubisoft's expectations.



According to a translation of Gautoz's video report provided by ResetEra Forum user Arubedo, the team responsible for the project was previously pushing for the higher-ups to greenlit a sequel. After those efforts proved unsuccessful, the developers advocated for two additional expansions following Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown's Mask of Darkness, which hit the market on September 17. These pitches were rejected as well, as Ubisoft supposedly decided the team's time was better spent on other projects with better commercial potential. The decision to stop supporting the game was supposedly made within weeks of its release, when Mask of Darkness was already in development.

When the sequel idea was shot down in early 2024, the higher-ups at the studio supposedly told the team that a sequel would cannibalize Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown's long-term sales. This wasn't cited as the main reason for the pitch being rejected, but one of them, as per the same source.

And while the developers are said to have been befuddled by the argument, this train of thought is not entirely unprecedented. Namely, Ubisoft does have a track record of pushing long-term sales through a variety of means as a way to recoup the costs of games that underperformed at launch rather than trying its luck with sequels. This is what it did with Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, which is said to have been enjoying a sales comeback around the time Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown debuted in mid-January 2024.

Posted: Oct 26, 2024 6:10 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://gamerant.com/prince-of-persia-lost-crown-developer-ubisoft-disbanded-why-report/