Update: Evil Empire has revealed the new release date for The Rogue Prince of Persia, which will now launch just a couple of weeks late on May 27th.
The studio also revealed an early access price of $19.99 USD (around $30 AUD) with a launch discount also seemingly planned:
The Rogue Prince of Persia's new release date is 27th May! If you didn't see our previous post, the TLDR is to give people time to play Hades 2, including us?
But if Silksong shadow-drops in the next two weeks we're burning the whole thing down!
Anyway, we can also reveal The… pic.twitter.com/ZQM3l5DcBI— Evil Empire (@Studio_Evil) May 13, 2024
Original Story: You’ve got to hand it to them, Evil Empire have announced a small delay to their upcoming early access roguelike platformer, The Rogue Prince of Persia, in sterling fashion – by admitting it’s largely thanks to the release of Hades 2.
And no, not because the entire team is busy playing Hades 2 instead of working on their own game (or at least not entirely for that reason). Rather, the studio has essentially come out and admitted that going up against the behemoth that is Supergiant’s latest with a similarly-positioned title in a similar “early access” state would end their run before it had even begun. For that reason, the launch is being moved from its original launch of May 14th to an undetermined date, still in the month of May.
Evil Empire also cops to the fact that this added bit of time will allow for some last-minute spit and polish and a bit more time to fine-tune the game’s “Day 1” update. Apparently, this has greatly relieved some of the stress on the title’s producer and game director, which sounds great for them.
So we've got a little bit of news about The Rogue Prince of Persia, it's all in the big yellow box?https://t.co/S3FiyGFfrY pic.twitter.com/9PXlw4J2MZ
— Evil Empire (@Studio_Evil) May 10, 2024
The full statement reads:
“So it’s been a bit of a crazy week for us! It all started when a little game called Hades 2 released – you might have heard of it?
“Seeing as everyone and their mum is playing that game (including our entire team… and their mums), we have decided to let people have their fun with it before we release The Rogue Prince of Persia.
“We will still be releasing in May and will be back with a precise date on Monday.
“While we have every confidence in The Rogue Prince of Persia, it’s not every day that a game in the same genre as you, which is one of the most anticipated upcoming games of 2024, will release into Early Access a week before you plan to do the same. We are not prideful enough to ignore the implications of that, and we truly believe that this short delay is the best decision for us and our Early Access journey.
“This also lets us keep polishing up the game, add even more cool things and kick some stubborn bugs out before release. The Day 1 patch was getting pretty hefty, so gaining more time to test it and add more stuff before launch day has considerably lowered the stress levels of our producer and game director already!
“We completely understand that this is annoying news to hear for everyone who was eager to play the game, especially so close to the anticipated release. We can only hold our hands up, apologise and hope that you understand. It will be worth the wait!
“Thank you for your patience.”
We recently had the chance to go hands-on with a preview build of The Rogue Prince of Persia, with James writing, “Evil Empire has more than earned its swing at such a storied franchise and for a short demo to leave such a clear impression, there’s evidently some juice here. The Rogue Prince of Persia will likely go through about as many iterations as the Prince through lives but the baseline flow is already impeccable and with nowhere to go but up, it’ll be a treat to see how high the crown’s latest claimant will rise.”
