The Prince of Persia Remake Was Beautiful Before Ubisoft Killed It
If you went back in time to 2020 and told me that Prince of Persia would die while Beyond Good & Evil 2 somehow survived, I would have called you a liar.
Yet here we are in 2026, staring at the wreckage of Ubisoft's "major reset." The company is currently imploding, shedding 95% of its value over the last eight years and enforcing a "voluntary" layoff program that feels about as voluntary as walking the plank. Amidst this chaos, they officially cancelled the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake. The official excuse? It didn't meet their "enhanced quality" standards.
But a new leak has surfaced that paints a very different picture. A workshop presentation from 2024 showcasing an early pre-alpha build has hit the internet, and contrary to what the suits are saying, it looked fantastic.
THE LEAK THAT HURTS
The presentation was initially found on Reddit before Ubisoft’s copyright ninjas descended upon it, but nothing truly leaves the internet. Users like "princeozzyX" managed to archive the images, which show art and in-game screencaps that fans are calling "breathtaking" and "beautiful".
I have seen the images, and I have to agree with the internet on this one. The lighting, the character models, and the environments looked like a genuine return to form. It is heartbreaking to see what could have been. The team clearly had a vision, and for Ubisoft to claim they cancelled it because it "fell below players' expectations" feels like a slap in the face to the developers who poured their souls into it.
THE MANAGEMENT MYTH
Let's look at the reality of the situation. This game didn't die because the developers were incompetent; it died because Ubisoft's leadership has spent the last decade driving the company off a cliff.
The project started with Ubisoft Mumbai and Pune, was dragged to Montreal, rebooted entirely, and then starved of resources. Unions are currently calling for CEO Yves Guillemot to recognize that he and the top brass are the problem, not the people making the games. When you lose 95% of your company's value, maybe it is time to stop blaming the quality of the textures and start looking in the mirror.
The leak proves that the talent was there. The game looked ready to compete with the likes of the Resident Evil 4 remake. Instead, we get nothing, and the Prince of Persia franchise goes back into the vault. At least they promised this "does not mean we're stepping away from the franchise," but coming from modern Ubisoft, that sounds more like a threat than a promise.
