After years of silence on thePrince of Persiafront, the series seems to have been revived in a big way. While we still don’t know much about the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remakeapart from that development is finally progressing, we did get the excellent 2D metroidvaniaPrince of Persia: The Lost Crownin January, and it’s being reported that another addition to the series is on the way.
While at the time of writing, there hasn’t been any official statements made to confirm the report, we’re hearing thata roguelite called The Rogue Prince of Persia is incoming, developed by Evil Empire, the studio behind the DLC forDead Cells.
But this article isn’t about that game. It’s actually about its developer, Evil Empire. Just two months ago in February 2024, Dead Cells developer and publisher Motion Twin announced that it would be ending development for good. It had been out for five years, had released regular updates alongside yearly expansions, and has earned its place in the roguelike canon.
That didn’t stop people from beingvery angry about it finally being laid to rest. Players were enraged that they wouldn’t be getting more content, while one former Dead Cells developer called Evil Empire the “only true Dead Cells team” because of the studio’s consistent work on the game, and accused Motion Twin of throwing Evil Empire under the bus and jeopardising its finances. Evil Empire’s statement said only that the team was working on other projects that would be revealed soon and expressed well-wishes for Motion Twin. Ultimately, it’s unclear if Evil Empire was forced to stop work on the game or not. But that’s not really the point.
Dead Cells, despite originally releasing as a single-player game, turned into a sort of pseudo live service game with new content being added constantly. This happens a lot with breakout indies. A small studio releases an unexpected hit, and the players want more, and so the studio gives it to them. And gives it to them. And gives it to them. Years go by, and they’ve been working on a single game for years with no end in sight.
Studios regularly work on multiple games at a time, so it’s likely that the new Prince of Persia game was in the works long before Dead Cells was retired for good. But it’s extremely difficult to make a live service game while still working on other things. Just askNaughty Dog– The Last of Us Factions was cancelled after years of uncertainty because supporting a live-service game is an enormous burden on a studio. It would take away resources that could have been put towards developing new games, which in Naughty Dog’s case, would be the single-player games it’s known for.
My colleage Eric Switzer wrotean excellent pieceabout how Naughty Dog cancelling Factions was the right choice, even if it was disappointing.
Naughty Dog is a big studio, and backed by Sony, no less. Evil Empire is much smaller, billing itself as a triple-I team. Of course, the games Evil Empire works on are much smaller than what Naughty Dog creates, but there is a burden all the same. Without Dead Cells’ death, the talent and experience that Evil Empire has cultivated over years of making beloved DLC for the game would have continued being aimed there. But now that it doesn’t have to work on Dead Cells any more, that skill can be directed towards new projects.
I’m not saying Dead Cells deserved to die, or that Evil Empire didn’t want to work on it anymore, because I don’t know if either of those statements are true. But any one developer has a finite capacity for work, and the knowledge accrued over years of experience can’t be faked or created from thin air. The people at Evil Empire are now free to bring their skills to other things,newthings, which is directly contributing to the revitalisation of a franchise long thought dead. Dead Cells had to die so that Prince of Persia could rise with a fighting chance.
