Ubisoft claims to have lost PoP players to God of War series

Animation director Jan-Erik Sjovall has said that Ubisoft's "lost" many Prince of Persia players to the God of War series, and is hoping to gain them back with The Forgotten Sands.

Speaking with CVG, Sjovall said that players "miss the challenge and brutality" from the games and Ubisoft's trying to tempt them back with the newest installment.

"When we make questionnaires and we ask, 'what did you play in the past?' The answer's 'Prince of Persia'. 'What do you play now?' 'God of War'. 'Would you play Prince of Persia again?' 'No, it's not hard enough'," revealed Sjovall.

"So the idea [with Forgotten Sands] was clearly that we'd try to bring our old audience back, but also we're winning a new audience.

"A lot of people ask, 'will you have gore in the game?' It'd fairly interesting. We want to have interesting fight sequences in there but not indulge in the violence like God of War does.

"We want to keep it interesting so the acrobatics, the story, and the whole look are all supporting each other and people go, 'yeah, I want to play that game'."

Forgotten Sands is due May 18 and 20 in the US and Europe, respectively, and a pre-order for the PS3 and 360 version was announced today through GameStop.