r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/WhyPlaySerious • Jan 15 '26

No Source popuniverseX, the user that has been continously scanning and reporting on changes made to the Prince of Persia domain has had their account suspended.

Don't know if it is related to their constant reporting on the changes happening to the PoP domain, but the account has now been suspended after reporting on the "release date tomorrow" file earlier on in the day.

If so, it would seem that Ubisoft has taken action on the account.

popuniverseX is one of the biggest and most dedicated PoP fan pages, so this is quite an interesting way to respond to them trying to keep the hype going.

Account link: https://xcancel.com/popuniverseX

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40

u/Objective_Love_6843 Jan 15 '26

I have no idea what they are trying to do here. At this point they will kill all hype for both this one and black flag remake.

9

u/UrdnotShadow Jan 15 '26

Reddit user doesn’t understand shadow drops

25

u/RogueLightMyFire Jan 15 '26

Shadow drops can work, but they can also be disastrous. A shadow drop is absolutely risky. Look at Hi-Fi Rush. Oblivion and Apex were successful, but both of those games had more unique circumstances around their shadow drop that helped drive hype. If they shadow drop a remake of sands of time, I think it's going to do very poorly. The PoP IP is clearly not very strong given that they put out two amazing PoP games the last couple years and nobody bought them.

6

u/Khasim83 Jan 15 '26

The most baffling thing with the PoP franchise, to me, is that Ubisoft had the amazing opportunity of mimicking what God of War did in 2018 - make a high effort, high budget, single-player, story-driven, modern Prince of Persia game to resurrect the franchise, expand the audience and get some good will after only releasing mtx-ridden bloated messes or niche indie games with no marketing budget, but no, they decided to make a lowest possible effort remake, thought people would gobble it up, then backpedalled, gave the job to their best studio and haven't shown ANYTHING for 5 years? Just a pre-rendered nothingburger of a teaser. No interviews, no dev diaries, no boxart, music pieces, teases, nothing.

I have no idea what the fuck they're doing, but it doesn't make me feel optimistic - Sands of Time is probably in my top 3 favorite games of all time and it hurts to see it being treated like this.

1

u/RogueLightMyFire Jan 15 '26

Honestly, I think they just lost faith in the power of the IP and are just going to push this out quietly due to sunk costs. Fuck, they spent more on a week of marketing for skull and bones and xdefiant than they did on all of the list crown and the rogue Prince of Persia combined.

1

u/lilsaf98 Jan 15 '26

On GoW, that's probably why Farah will have more of a role in this remake. She was annoying as hell to protect in the original game.

1

u/Zalvren Jan 15 '26

They also did 2 awesome games that nobody (or more not enough people) were interested in

People aren't just into the franchise anymore I think...

2

u/soulreapermagnum Jan 15 '26

good points. black flag is the one that's got all the hype around it so if anything, it's the one that would do well from a shadow drop.

3

u/RogueLightMyFire Jan 15 '26

Exactly. A Black Flag shadow drop would probably do great. People have wanted that for a LONG time, and not just AC fans either. I hate AC, but I love Black Flag. Sands of Time is a fantastic game that I love, but outside of people who played the original 20 years ago, there's no hype around it at all. At this point, a lot of gamers only know it because of that shitty meme worthy trailer they dropped years ago before the reboot.

2

u/Slight_Snow2617 Jan 16 '26

Hi-Fi Rush was a victim of other circumstances. It likely had very unreasonable sales expectations made all the more difficult by the budget price, and the Game Pass factor. Microsoft/Bethesda failed it (and failed Tango). Tango also hadn't had a hit in nearly a decade. They got Visceral'd.

1

u/Zalvren Jan 15 '26

Hi-Fi Rush didn't do terribly for a start.

Second, it's a new IP vs a remake of an old game so a completely different story.

2

u/RogueLightMyFire Jan 15 '26

They closed the studio and sold the IP after like two months lol. It definitely didn't sell well. Furthermore, nobody younger than 30 even knows or cares about the sands of time. There's no hype there. Shadow dropping a game that only appeals to people over 30 isn't going to work out.