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Recommended reading The roguelike Prince of Persia platformer is now out of early access and feature complete, though it may get more content if it 'gets popular' Action platformer The Rogue Prince of Persia re-announces itself at the PC Gaming Show 2025 with a new breakneck baddie-slashing, boss-battling trailer Don't ask me how many peasant soldiers I've sent to their demise in this roguelike deckbuilder where your cards can suffer slow, painful permadeath Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound review: A fun revival that opts for solid fundamentals over innovation Shadow Labyrinth review: Pac-Man is entertainingly miscast in this grimdark Metroidvania Absolum isn't just the best demo on Steam, it's one of my favorite things I've played in 2025 This roguelike auto-battler has me obsessed with doing entire RPG adventures in 5 minutes The Rogue Prince of Persia When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The Rogue Prince of Persia review The Rogue Prince of Persia shows there's life in the Prince yet, by killing him repeatedly. Jody Macgregor 26 August 2025 (Image: © Ubisoft) Our Verdict Smooth action blends seamlessly into smooth traversal, making this the better modern 2D Prince of Persia. PC Gamer's got your back Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware. Need to know What is it? A roguelite mash-up of Dead Cells and Hades. Expect to pay: $30/£25 Developer: Evil Empire Publisher: Ubisoft Reviewed on: Windows 11, Intel Core i9, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 4060 Multiplayer? No Link: Official site I know we just had a 2D Prince of Persia platformer last year and it's all very confusing to have another already, but given that Sands of Time, Warrior Within, and The Two Thrones all came out in a period of just three years back in the early 2000s, I'm sure we'll manage. Besides, the recent pair are actually quite different if you look past the sidescrolling. The previous one, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, was a metroidvania, which means you spent half the game waiting to unlock the abilities that were actually fun. Meanwhile, The Rogue Prince of Persia is a roguelite, which means you get access to basics like dashing and special attacks early on—but then you die a bunch of times to the first boss because you need to unlock a weapon you gel with better than the basic sword. (Image credit: Ubisoft) A magical pendant has given this incarnation of the Prince the ability to return from death, waking each time he kicks the bucket back at the start of the day like a Middle-Eastern Bill Murray. Which is helpful when an army of Huns arrives at the city gates and the Prince immediately falls in battle against their leader like an absolute chump. Related Articles The roguelike Prince of Persia platformer is now out of early access and feature complete, though it may get more content if it 'gets popular' Action platformer The Rogue Prince of Persia re-announces itself at the PC Gaming Show 2025 with a new breakneck baddie-slashing, boss-battling trailer Don't ask me how many peasant soldiers I've sent to their demise in this roguelike deckbuilder where your cards can suffer slow, painful permadeath The problem with permadeath games is how tempting it is to put them down when you die and just do something less punishing with your time. Rogue Prince borrows the solution to this problem from Hades, along with quite a bit else. Given that developer Evil Empire previously handled the updates for Dead Cells it's no surprise how much of Dead Cells there is in their new game, but wow there's a lot of Hades as well. Where Hades had a throne room, Rogue Prince has an oasis where you wake after each death and chat to a growing collection of friends and family you rescue from the Huns one by one. Most of them have something to offer mechanically, whether it's a bounty list of enemies to kill in challenging ways, weapons to unlock, or outfits to craft, but the text-box conversations don't quite manage the charm of Hades. (Image credit: Ubisoft) That's the main area where Rogue Prince falls short of its inspiration, with dialogue repeating fairly often and sometimes feeling redundant even when it doesn't. Where I never got tired of hanging out with Zagreus and his crew, the nameless Prince assembles a more generic cast around himself. In other areas though, Rogue Prince comes shockingly close to equaling its inspiration. The action's intense, with a dash that becomes a vault when used next to enemies, an acrobatic flip that puts you behind them and ideally placed for a stab or a kick. (The kick can propel enemies into each other for a stun or off ledges and into spikes for instant death, giving it a bit of that Dark Messiah juice.) The brief airtime of that vault is the perfect time to charge a special attack, different for each weapon, that might launch enemies like the kick or set them on fire. The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. The movement is just as thrilling, with a wallrun that can be chained into jumps, dashes, and climbs to mean you're unlikely to run out of options to reach that one ledge even though it initially seems out of reach. Sometimes an offscreen sorcerer will reach out a smoky tentacle to grab a screaming child or goat then drag them away, initiating a chase through the level that's better motivation to rush than the time-limited reward gates in Dead Cells. There wasn't a single time I saw that tentacle and didn't immediately race off on an ill-advised parkour chase involving multiple leaps of faith over spinning blades, having an absolute blast every time. (Image credit: Ubisoft) Even the music's a close equal to Hades. It's Persian trap: a mix of Middle-Eastern folk instruments like setar and daf with modern electronic dance from producer Danny Asadi, propulsive beats that provide the perfect motivation to make you naturally want to accelerate to keep time with it. It's so effective I'm adding it to my playlist for running in real life. The artist formerly known as Prince The roguelite formula is at its best when each run is meaningfully distinct. Rogue Prince doesn't always manage that, with the medallions that provide situational buffs and mechanical shifts sometimes underwhelming. You'll pick up a medallion that turns resin to poison without having access to the weapon that spreads resin on a charged attack, or find a medallion that gives a percentage boost to ranged weapon damage on a run where the only one you've got is a bit of a dud, or when you need that slot to carry a plot item to solve a puzzle. (Image credit: Ubisoft) It's not that I never assembled a build around, say, a medallion that gives buffs for unspent money or shoots out fire daggers when I do a charged attack, but the runs where the medallions, weapons, and tools on offer combined in interesting ways were few. The core of Rogue Prince remains solid enough to offset that particular annoyance, though. For all the ways the series has changed, the thing that remains constant is the importance of flow. In 1989 it was the mocapped animations of Jordan Mechner's brother that inspired you to propel the Prince across a gap to clamber under a gate the moment before it closed. Here, it's a generous wealth of fluid movement options that bleed into combat moves, letting you leap over spikes, wallrun to a pole, leap off it and ground-pound a Hun assassin beneath without ever slowing down. The Verdict Read our review policy The Rogue Prince of Persia Smooth action blends seamlessly into smooth traversal, making this the better modern 2D Prince of Persia. Jody Macgregor Social Links Navigation Weekend/AU Editor Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. The roguelike Prince of Persia platformer is now out of early access and feature complete, though it may get more content if it 'gets popular' Action platformer The Rogue Prince of Persia re-announces itself at the PC Gaming Show 2025 with a new breakneck baddie-slashing, boss-battling trailer Don't ask me how many peasant soldiers I've sent to their demise in this roguelike deckbuilder where your cards can suffer slow, painful permadeath Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound review: A fun revival that opts for solid fundamentals over innovation Shadow Labyrinth review: Pac-Man is entertainingly miscast in this grimdark Metroidvania Absolum isn't just the best demo on Steam, it's one of my favorite things I've played in 2025 Latest in Roguelike 'Silksong lol': CloverPit devs delay the slot machine Balatro-like by 23 days to escape the blast radius of Silksong's launch Vampire Survivors developer Poncle has just shadow-dropped its latest publishing effort, where you murder sentient bricks with your living bullets The roguelike Prince of Persia platformer is now out of early access and feature complete, though it may get more content if it 'gets popular' Hyper Light Breaker has shadow dropped a new update with floating islands, difficulty modifiers, a beefy new tank character, and a challenging duo boss that's 'technically 4 bosses' depending on what order you beat them in Playstack, not content with obliterating my free time via Balatro, is publishing another roguelike about coin pusher machines Cult of the Lamb has revealed a huge DLC coming next year, finally letting us explore the towering mountain from the back of the map which has been bugging me since launch Latest in Reviews Corsair Xeneon Edge review KTC H27T22C-3 review Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater review: Safe, but excellent Elgato 4K S review MSI Stealth 18 HX AI review Asus ROG Falcata HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES LATEST GAME REVIEWS Best Hall effect keyboards in 2025: the fastest, most customizable keyboards for competitive gaming Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC Best graphics cards in 2025: I've tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today's top cards Best gaming laptop in 2025: I've put the best of this new generation head-to-head and we have a winner Best gaming chair in 2025: I've tested a ton of gaming chairs and these are the seats I'd suggest for any PC gamer Corsair Xeneon Edge review KTC H27T22C-3 gaming monitor review Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater review Elgato 4K S review MSI Stealth 18 HX AI review PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. 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