I was just on socials promoting my article about Prey Mooncrash and the closure of Arkane Austin, when I came across a most curious and oddly sensible statement from Evil Empire. In a nutshell: The Rogue Prince of Persia has been delayed until next month, with a new release date set to follow next week with a new release date of May 27th.
The reason for this delay isn’t because of a last minute technical problem, or because some focus group decided the game needed more guns and explosions. Instead, the game is being delayed after the surprise launch of Hades 2 earlier this month.
The full statement on Steam, which is where I did my cut and pasting, goes into more detail. The main point, however, is that Evil Empire wants to avoid the unstoppable juggernaut of Supergiant’s myth-infused action-roguelite.
Given how I’m still playing Hades 2, at the same time as juggling new rogues AND satisfying my continuing addiction to Balatro, I’m actually quite pleased by this. This savvy decision gives us all a chance to properly enjoy Supergiant’s superb sequel before moving our attention to what I hope is a superb Prince of Persia game.
Evil Empire’s statement
As you can see, EE’s statement is quite funny, so I’ve included the whole thing below, to save you the click should you wish to stay here and bask in all the roguishness of my little website.
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.
We also want to give Hades 2 a headstart before we start running, it’s only fair 😉
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!
Thanks for your patience,
Matt and the Evil Empire team
