Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

First up, Lead Producer Bertrand Helias on the team's influences:

When you have to create a sequel to a highly-acclaimed game, such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the task is definitely a challenge. We tried to push every aspect of the game by adding more of everything: polygons, textures, cut scenes, attacks, actions, characters, replay value -- you name it! And creating an ambitious game within a short period of time brought us to work with a huge team. This is great since the team is very talented!

Before the end of PoP: SoT, some of us on the team began holding evening meetings imaging what could happen in the next game. A few key ideas were born from those evening sessions such as the idea to start on a boat in order to surprise the player; the idea of time travel and to have a story that loops and completes the previous game by explaining the origins of the Sands; and finally, the fact that a greater evil chases the Prince from this long forgotten time. We also discussed many of our influences at these meetings -- Pirates of the Caribbean, Castlevania's 2D games, etc. As we got closer to actual production, a more official process began with a lot more brainstorming and concept development. A lot of ideas were spawned and they enabled us to enrich the original concept that is now being worked on.

Gameplay ideas were conceptualized during our many of our brainstorm sessions. As a team, we discussed possibilities from our influences from action movies, ideas of team members, and from things that we couldn't put in PoP: SoT due to time constraints. We also got ideas from fan forums (whom we would like to thank for their support). For example, the idea for the Prince being able to slide down drapes with his blade came from the PoP forums. The main thing we wanted to accomplish was to give players what they are used to from the PoP series but at the same time surprise them in a lot of ways throughout the game so as to make a new experience.

Mikael Labat, our artistic director, made it very clear from the beginning that he wanted a more realistic treatment of the characters and more details and a better mood for the environment. The ability to travel through time enabled us to visit Ancient Persia, which is more a mix between Persian and Greek culture -- which also makes a change from the Arabian night feeling of PoP: SoT. The darker emotions support the stress and the immersion of the player in the environment in two main ways: "desolation" in the present where the fortress is destroyed and "oppression" in the past with rich and magnificent environments full of lurking dangers. In the end, the darker tone fits really well with a story more personal to the Prince and the Dahaka chasing him.

We are [currently] finishing the last environments of the game, the main walkthrough, and tweaking the enemies. Sounds and voices (cut scenes and in-game) are being integrated everywhere. The menu interface and cinematics are in development and so are the final bosses. It's really nice to see how well all the parts start to fit together... I hope people will have a lot of fun with the game :) but we still have some tough nights ahead of us. We still have all the final integration, final tweaking of the game, and integrating feedback from consumer testing. Finally a lot of debugging will be in order to bring the game to the highest quality standards. Fortunately, from this point of view, we benefit a lot from being a sequel as the engine is much more stable.

And with that said, I'm going back to work!

We'll be back with more developer diaries and other coverage of Warrior Within in the next few months. For now, head over to our slideshow for a batch of exclusive new screens.

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