Ubisoft has officially announced an alternative to Ubisoft Connect, its third-party launcher that has been known to cause stickiness with SteamOS, Linux, and other systems that require translation layers to function. Ubisoft Connect will not be going away completely, but, starting with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Ubisoft is testing Ubisoft Connect Services—a new Steam tool that enables cross-progression, cross-play, challenges and rewards, and player safety, independently of the Connect launcher.

The decision to move away from Ubisoft Connect as a hard requirement for game launching was likely spurred on by the increasing reliance on tools like Proton and Steam's new Arm and Android compatibility tools, FEX and Lepton. Ubisoft says that the testing version of Ubisoft Connect Services is "an initial step toward a smoother and more streamlined launch experience on Steam," and it promises to build on it and improve Ubisoft Connect Services as more players use it, eventually also rolling it out for more games.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, the latest game in the Castlevania series was revealed as a 2026 game release currently in development as a collaborative project between Konami, Evil Empire, and Motion Twin—the latter two being behind The Rogue Prince of Persia and Dead Cells, respectively. Belmont's Curse is a 2D action-adventure game that follows Trevor Belmont's successor through 1499 Paris as she wields the classic holy whip for both combat and traversal through the looming castle and eerie Parisian streets. Based on the Steam Store page, Belmont's Curse will feature fast-paced combat, a variety of weapons and abilities to wield and develop, challenging environmental puzzles, and plenty of enemies to keep things fresh.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse will see the return of a number of classic Castlevania tropes and mechanics, like secret chambers, buried items, and challenging boss battles, but the game also switches things up with colorful twist on the series's gothic art style, seemingly blending some of the Dead Cells aesthetic with that of the famous vampire-killing franchise. Belmont's Curse doesn't have a fixed release date just yet, but it is slated to launch in 2026 for PC via Steam, the PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series consoles via the Microsoft Store.

Ubisoft earlier this month announced the cancellation of a swathe of in-progress games, one of them being the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, and although that game will likely never see the light of day as a complete product, pre-alpha workshop presentation snapshots from March 2024 have leaked online, giving fans of the series a glimpse at what might have been. The footage shows off the titular character in a number of environments, including in the middle of several parkour moves—a system that was meant to be getting a big update with the remake—and a handful of refreshed, expansive environments and character designs for both the prince and Farah. Objectively, some of the game assets look better than others, but this is to be expected from a 2024 version of the game, however, it's clear a lot of work has gone into modernizing the visuals, environments, and character designs.

Ubisoft said that the troubled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was cancelled because it didn't meet the minimum standard of quality expected from executives after Ubisoft's recent overhaul, however, fans of the series seem to disagree. On X, where the test footage was posted, players are both commenting on how good the revised visuals look and lamenting the game's cancellation, with some appealing to Ubisoft to release the game, while others, doubting that Ubisoft will ever return to the franchise after the successive issues that plagued The Sands of Time Remake, are begging the studio to sell the IP to another studio. The Sands of Time was originally announced in 2020 and slated to release in 2021, but it was delayed and appeared to be dead until recently, when leaks claimed that the game was to launch in 2026. Following the cancellation of The Sands of Time Remake, it has also been confirmed that Ubisoft is looking to potentially lay off up to 200 employees at its Paris headquarters.

It seems as though Ubisoft isn't out of danger just yet, despite a massive round of layoffs last year and a new subsidiary with substantial Tencent investment. According to an announcement, the gaming giant has cancelled a slew of games and instituted a company-wide reshuffle as part of a revised three-year roadmap to accelerate cost reductions. One part of this restructuring involves the closure of "several" studios and a new return-to-office mandate that will see Ubisoft employees return to office five days a week. The employees will also receive an annual allotment of work-from-home days that can be used flexibly. It's unclear how many days each employee will be allotted. Part of the justification for the restructuring is to "return to exceptional levels of quality on the open-world adventure segment," and renew focus on Ubisoft's games-as-a-service business. This includes the closure of Ubisoft's Stockholm studio and the prior closure of its Halifax mobile studio and restructuring efforts in Abu Dabhi, RedLynx, and Massive. With these measures, Ubisoft is planning to save at least €200 million in fixed costs over the next two years. According to a source who spoke to Insider Gaming, Ubisoft is expected to lay off "hundreds" of employees as a result of the restructuring.

Ubisoft also announced that it will be discontinuing six games that it says "do not meet the new enhanced quality" that Ubisoft is aiming for. It has confirmed that the cancelled games include the much-anticipated Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake, an unannounced mobile game, and three new IPs, suggesting there was at least one more remake or sequel that was also cancelled. Ubisoft has also delayed the launch of seven games, one of which has been theorized to be the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake that has repeatedly shown up in leaks. Ubisoft says it has four new IPs currently in development, including the recently acquired March of Giants. Part of the aforementioned restructuring, Ubisoft plans to split its different IPs up among five creative houses, which will each have "end-to-end responsibility" for the IPs in its portfolio, meaning they will be responsible for "the full creative and brand scope" and managing everything from development to marketing, branding, and publishing strategies. Likewise, each creative house will be responsible for the financial performance of their various projects, including profits and losses and cash generation.

Ubisoft first announced that it would be remaking Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time back in 2020, but the game has faced a troubled development cycle, with multiple delays since the reveal trailer and announcement—this includes when Ubisoft transferred the game from its studios in India to Ubisoft Montreal. Now, thanks to a recent Ubisoft earnings call, it seems as though the remake will launch as soon as Q4 2026. This timeline checks out, since four to five years in development makes sense for a AAA game franchise from a big studio.

The remake's supposed launch date was revealed by Ubisoft shortly after leaks claimed that the remake of Assassin's Creed Black Flag would launch around March 2026. Obviously, an official product roadmap from an investor briefing is far more trustworthy than a supposed leak, but it's important to also remember that Ubisoft originally planned to launch the Prince of Persia remake as soon as 2021, so it's anyone's guess whether it will actually materialize next year, even if the development timeline does make sense. Ubisoft also tipped an "unannounced title" that will also launch alongside the Sands of Time reboot.

After a considerable wait and a long Steam Early Access testing period, The Rogue Prince of Persia has finally launched at Gamescom, where we also saw more details about the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally. The game is a 2D rogue-lite platformer spin on the Prince of Persia franchise, and it is available for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, Epic Games, Ubisoft Connect, and Game Pass. The Rogue Prince of Persia features the same acrobatic combat and wall-running the Prince of Persia franchise is known for, and players can combine the acrobatics with "over 100 unique weapons" that each have their own characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. Being a rogue-lite with procedurally generated levels, each run looks and feels unique, and each death is a learning opportunity.

The plot of The Rogue Prince of Persia sees players saving Persia from an evil force invading his city and trying to correct a mistake that led to this outcome in the first place. So far, the Steam reviews for The Rogue Prince of Persia are very positive, at 87% positive, even though the game has only ever been in early access until now. Over the course of the early access period, Evil Empire games has tweaked the visuals, added a sizeable chunk of content, and used player feedback to make the gameplay more engaging. The 1.0 update continues this trend and introduces two new biomes, the Besieged Palace and the Port of Ctesiphon, adds the final act of the story, and introduces the final boss, King Nogai. The full update notes can be read on the game's Steam Store page.

Ubisoft this week announced that XDefiant would be joining the recently axed Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. As of December 3, the free-to-play first-person shooter will no longer be available to download, and no new players will be allowed to create an account. On June 3, 2025, XDefiant's servers will officially be shut down, making the game unplayable for old and new players alike. Along with the announcement of the closure, the development team behind XDefiant will also see significant changes, with 277 developers being laid off as a result of the shut-down, according to Stephen Totilo on BlueSky.

The remaining development team will be kept on to manage the game throughout its sunsetting until June 2025. It's not really a surprise that XDefiant is shutting down, despite the game's executive producer vehemently denying the allegations of the same as recently as October this year. While the exact reason for the game's closure wasn't revealed, news broke about XDefiant's struggles soon after its March 2024 launch, and it appears that the staunch competition in the space and the difficulties of monetizing a free-to-play game, even one that tries to break the mold, was just too much for XDefiant and its developer team.

The latest game to come out of the Prince of Persia series was Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, which launched in January 2024. Now, after just 10 months on the market, Ubisoft has reportedly disbanded the development team behind the project, effectively ending all future development for the game and scrapping any planned sequels and DLC that was meant to be added to the game. The news has officially been acknowledged by Ubisoft, who published and developed the Prince of Persia game, and in its response, the game studio said that most of the developers involved with The Lost Crown have already moved to "other projects that will benefit from their expertise."

Since its launch in January this year, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown has been a bit of a commercial flop, garnering a mere 1,446-player peak player count on Steam, according to SteamDB. Insider Gaming reports that The Lost Crown sold as many as 1 million units across its PS5, Xbox, and PC releases, leading Ubisoft to classify it as a commercial failure. Despite basically acknowledging that The Lost Crown wasn't profitable enough, Ubisoft seemingly wants to leave the door open for future installments in the Prince of Persia franchise, saying "We know players have a love for this brand and Ubisoft is excited to bring more Prince of Persia experiences in the future."

World of Warcraft comes to the cloud this week, part of the 17 games joining the GeForce NOW library, with seven available to stream this week. Plus, it's time to get rewarded. Get a free in-game mount in Elder Scrolls Online starting today by opting into GeForce NOW's Rewards program.

Heroes Rise to the Cloud
Dive into the immersive realms of World of Warcraft, including the latest expansion Dragonflight, the nostalgic journey of World of Warcraft Classic and the recently launched World of Warcraft Cataclysm Classic. These popular, massively multiplayer, online role-playing experiences from Blizzard Entertainment immerse players in legendary battles.

In case you missed it, we're about to enter the last week of May and soon summer is here. It's a pretty busy release for new games, even though there are no AAA releases, there are still plenty of interesting new games being released. This week's major release involves not getting sacrificed to the gods. The rest of this weeks' releases range from being the saviour of Persia to being in charge of Titans and that's just the first two releases. This is followed by taking the reins of a martial arts cat, exploring the black priory and racing F1 cars. Hopefully we've managed to cover most bases this week, but there's always next week for those of you that didn't see anything that tickled your fancy.

Soulmask / This week's major release / Friday 31 May
Soulmask is a sandbox game that prioritizes an authentic survival experience. As the "last one" blessed with the mysterious mask, players will grapple for survival in a primitive land steeped in mysterious faiths, carving out a path to ascendance. Start from nothing, explore, build, recruit tribesmen to fortify your clan, and ultimately unravel the mysterious truths hidden behind the civilizations of this world. Steam Link

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is beckoning players back to Mount Qaf starting on March 20, when a free content update will bring new modes and other content to the critically acclaimed, Metroidvania-inspired action-adventure. More updates will follow in spring, summer, and beyond, introducing more modes, challenges, and paid story-driven DLC.

The March 20 update, titled Warrior's Path, will add speedrun and permadeath modes, as well as four new outfits for Sargon. Later this spring, it'll be followed by the Boss Attack update, which adds a boss rush challenge in addition to more outfits. The Divine Trials update will follow this summer, adding new combat, platform, and puzzle challenges, along with new Amulets, outfits, and more. The new storyline will debut later this year as paid DLC, and will introduce new environments and enemies for Sargon to confront.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is out now on Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 4|5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC (via Epic Games Store & the Ubisoft Store), and Amazon Luna. An all-new adventure set in a milieu of Persian mythology and history, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a 2.5D action-adventure that casts players as Sargon, youngest member of the elite, superhero-like Immortals. Armed with acrobatic combat skills and an ever-growing arsenal of time powers, Sargon explores the mythical Mount Qaf in search of the kidnapped Prince Ghassan, and gradually unravels the dark secret at the heart of the mountain's time curse.

Inspired by Metroidvanias, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown invites players to explore a vast citadel complex and its outlying biomes, including forests, caves, snowy peaks, and much more. Developed by Ubisoft Montpellier - the studio that also produced Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends - the game builds on the ultra-responsive, highly varied platforming action that the Rayman games established - as well as their tradition of spike- and trap-filled pathways that sometimes leave little room for error. Demanding quick reflexes, it delivers performance to match, with all platforms targeting at least 60 frames per second.

Hold on to your seats—this week's GFN update is unleashing dinosaurs, crowns and more in the cloud. Catch it all on Capcom's Exoprimal and Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, leading 10 new games joining the GeForce NOW library this week.

Suit Up, Adapt, Survive
Don cutting-edge exosuit technology and battle ferocious dinosaurs on an Earth overrun with waves of prehistoric predators. Capcom's online team-based action game Exoprimal is now supported in the cloud. Face velociraptors, T. rex and mutated variants called Neosaurs using the exosuit's unique weapons and abilities. Join other players in the game's main mode, Dino Survival, to unlock snippets and special missions from the original story, piecing together the origins of the dinosaur outbreak. Change exosuits on the fly, switching between Assault, Tank and Support roles to suit the situation. Catch the game in the cloud this week alongside the release of Title Update 3, which brings a new mission and special Monster Hunter collaboration content, a new map, new rigs, plus the start of the third season. Ultimate members can enjoy it all at up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second, and new players can purchase the game on Steam at 50% off for a limited time.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown launches tomorrow, January 18, for modern consoles and PC, and is available now with a Ubisoft+ subscription or for purchasers of the Digital Deluxe Edition. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an adventure inspired by Persian mythology and the Metroidvania genre, in which players step into the boots of Sargon - the youngest member of Persia's most elite warriors, the Immortals - and brave the dangers of the mysterious Mount Qaf on a journey to save the kidnapped Prince Ghassan. Wielding acrobatic parkour abilities, mystical time powers, and fluid, combo-driven sword skills, Sargon discovers a world shattered by a time curse, where he'll battle sand zombies, screen-filling monsters, and even alternate versions of himself.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, the studio behind Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends - and some of those games' DNA persists in Sargon's adventure, particularly when it comes to platforming. Like Rayman and crew, Sargon has a certain rhythm and bounce to his movements that helps make exploration a blast, and a lot of his time is spent navigating deviously designed platforming sequences that dare players to thread their way through gauntlets of spikes and traps with increasingly less room for error. To find out more about this connection, and how Ubisoft Montpellier's experience on the Rayman games helped shape Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, we spoke with Game Director Mounir Radi.

As we enter the third week of the new year, we have the first major release of the year, although it might not quite be a AAA release it combines something old with something even older to try and make it into something new. As for the rest of this coming week's releases, we have a steampunk RPG set in the Victorian area, a co-op FPS, a turned based 4X god game, a city builder with a twist and a world full of your pals.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown / This week's major release / Thursday 18 January
Dash into a stylish and thrilling action-adventure platformer set in a mythological Persian world where the boundaries of time and space are yours to manipulate. Play as Sargon and evolve from sword-wielding prodigy to extraordinary legend as you master acrobatic combat and unlock new Time Powers and unique super abilities.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown launches on January 18 (or on January 15 for Ubisoft+ subscribers and owners of the Digital Deluxe Edition), whether you're playing on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, or Amazon Luna. The game offers up challenging combat and platforming, but the development team at Ubisoft Montpellier want to ensure that as many people as possible are able to play.

About Prince of Persia The Lost Crown:
Dash into a stylish and thrilling action-adventure platformer set in a mythological Persian world where the boundaries of time and space are yours to manipulate.
Play as Sargon and evolve from sword-wielding prodigy to extraordinary legend as you master acrobatic combat and unlock new Time Powers and unique super abilities.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a fast-paced action-adventure that challenges players with a wide variety of lethal monsters and traps, most of which take speed and precision to conquer—which means that smooth, responsive performance is especially important. To that end, Sargon's adventure through Mount Qaf will target at least 60 frames per second on all platforms when it launches on January 18 (or on January 15 for Ubisoft+ subscribers and owners of the Digital Deluxe Edition), whether you're playing on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, or Amazon Luna. First, let's take a look at the PC specs below.

The Story of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Sargon, trained as a weapon to serve Persia, is on a mission to save its heir to the throne, Prince Ghassan. This perilous journey is sending him to Mount Qaf, where time no longer flows swift and sure in one direction. Sargon along with the other Immortals head to Mount Qaf to save the Prince, but it doesn't take long before he finds himself splitting paths, with some of the Immortals on a conflicting trajectory. Maybe that's because time seems to be mysteriously intertwined here and sometimes the past can happen after the present. No matter the cost, Sargon continues to strive when all odds are against him, gaining strength along the way.

Today, during the Summer Game Fest live showcase, Ubisoft announced Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, an action-adventure platformer game set in a mythological Persian world. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown will release on 18th January, 2024 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, Amazon Luna as well as Windows PC through the Epic Games Store and the Ubisoft Store. Players can also subscribe to Ubisoft+ on PC, Xbox and Amazon Luna.

In this brand-new adventure, players will embody Sargon, a young, gifted warrior, and member of an elite group called The Immortals. As they are sent to rescue Prince Ghassan, they will explore Mount Qaf, a once wondrous place, now cursed and hostile. Sargon and his brothers-in-arms will soon discover that time itself will be a treacherous foe and that the world balance must be restored.

ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world's largest channel manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and mini-PCs, today unleashes the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 graphics card - the world's fastest graphics card powered by NVIDIA Fermi architecture. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 delivers a perfect DirectX 11 gaming experience, dominates the competition with world-class performance and delivers unmatched gaming immersion.

Games powered by Microsoft DirectX 11 technology render flawlessly on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 graphics card with unprecedented visual realism and details. Integrated hardware tessellation technology enables the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 series to inject a dose of reality into flat game textures and models for a virtual environment that mimics reality for a greater sense of immersion in hardware tessellation enabled games.

ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world's largest channel manufacturer of graphics cards, mini-PCs and small form factor platforms, today unleashes two new affordable GeForce GTX 400 series graphics cards - the new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 1GB and GeForce GTX 460 Synergy Edition. The new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 series deliver class-leading features and technology to gamers, enthusiasts and all PC users looking for a thrilling visual experience.

Stunning visuals are made possible with the powerful NVIDIA Fermi architecture that delivers superior graphics processing power and Microsoft DirectX 11 technology that powers the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 series. Hardware tessellation takes 3D games to the next level of visual realism with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 series by enabling increased visual details in every object and environment in the latest games DirectX 11 powered games for a cinematic gaming experience that rivals the latest CGI-animated Hollywood masterpieces.

Point of View today, has announced special graphics card game bundles with Ubisoft's fourth generation addition to the Prince of Persia franchise. The bundles start at the range of a GeForce 9500 GT based graphics card, and go high up the range of what Point of View has to offer. These special edition bundles can be identified with the box packaging with the new Prince of Persia theme. Inside the box would be the usual contents of a graphics card package, along with a copy of the full-version of the game.

Point of View in its press release includes a short description of the game, and on how its hardware is geared up for it. The game by Ubisoft is described by Point of View as "a magnificent game which looks like nothing you've ever seen before!", which is somewhat justified by the screenshots posted. With the incorporation of design elements such as Cel-Shading the characters are presented as something hand-drawn, as something straight out of an animation film. The Point of View bundles will be hitting stores soon. The company has a history of offering such themed graphics card bundles, with affiliations to titles such as Assassins Creed and Wall E. The full press release can be read here.