Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is an action-adventure video game released in 2003. It was created by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. The game was available on the Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Windows in November 2003. The Sands of Time is a new version of the Prince of Persia series, originally created by Jordan Mechner. He worked as a creative consultant, designer, and writer for the game.
The story follows an unnamed prince whose father attacks an ancient city at the request of a dishonest Vizier. During the attack, the prince finds an artifact called the Dagger of Time. His father’s army captures an hourglass holding the mysterious Sands of Time. Later, the Vizier tricks the prince into releasing the Sands during a visit to the Sultan of Azad’s palace. This causes the people of Azad to turn into savage monsters. With the help of Farah, a young princess who understands the Sands’ power, the prince tries to fix his mistake and stop the Vizier’s plans. The game includes platforming challenges, where the prince jumps and climbs, and battles with creatures created by the Sands. A key feature is using the Dagger to rewind time if the prince makes a mistake or to freeze and kill enemies.
Development of the game began in spring 2001 after Ubisoft bought the Prince of Persia series. Production started in June 2001 after Jordan Mechner joined the team. The original story was too complicated, so the team focused on four main ideas, including the ability to rewind time. This idea led to the creation of the Dagger, the Sands, and their powers. Mechner’s script was inspired by the Shahnameh, a famous storybook, and aimed to create a simple story that matched the game’s fast-paced gameplay. The game used Ubisoft’s Jade engine, which was first developed for another game called Beyond Good & Evil. Development faced challenges, such as problems with the engine and delays in creating game environments. However, the team successfully created a network of testers to find and fix game issues. In 2004, a mobile phone version of the game was released in North America by Gameloft.
Upon release, The Sands of Time received high praise from critics and won many awards. It is often considered one of the best video games ever made. Sales were slow at first but later became successful. A sequel, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, was released in November 2004. Additional games in the Sands of Time storyline were later developed. The game is widely credited with bringing the Prince of Persia series back to popularity. As of 2014, the game sold over 14 million copies worldwide across all platforms. In 2026, a remake of the game was canceled after years of development.
Gameplay
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a game that combines action, adventure, puzzles, and platforming. The player controls an unnamed Prince from a kingdom in Persia. The game is viewed from a third-person perspective, meaning the player sees the Prince from the side. The camera changes angles when the Prince enters new areas or performs actions. The Prince can move in all directions and push or pull large objects like blocks and levers connected to machines. His health and power are shown in the top left corner of the screen. The Prince regains health by drinking water from pools and fountains. If he loses all his health due to traps or enemies, the game ends. Collecting Sands increases the Prince’s power, and drinking from hidden magic fountains increases his maximum health. At certain points in the game, the Prince is helped by Farah, an artificial intelligence-controlled character who shoots enemies with a bow. However, Farah’s arrows can also harm the Prince if he is in her line of fire. If Farah is killed by enemies, the game ends.
During exploration, the Prince moves through areas with dangerous traps, such as spike pits, arrow traps, wall-mounted blades, and spinning spikes. The Prince’s main move is wall-running, where he runs up a wall for a short distance to jump to a platform. Other abilities include climbing ledges, walking on beams, swinging from poles, jumping between pillars, and swinging on ropes. Large puzzles are found in big rooms and often require Farah’s help to solve. In combat, the Prince fights monsters created by the Sands using two melee weapons: a sword and a Dagger of Time. The sword has different moves based on the player’s position and direction, while special moves like a somersault or bouncing off walls require specific commands. After being hit by the sword, enemies can only be defeated by stabbing them with the Dagger of Time, which removes Sands from them.
The Sands collected from enemies and the environment are used for magical abilities tied to the Dagger of Time. One ability is Rewind, which lets the Prince reverse time up to ten seconds to undo mistakes like falling off platforms, being overwhelmed by enemies, or losing Farah. When the Dagger gains special power called "tanks," the Prince can use three offensive abilities: slowing time around himself, freezing a single enemy, or freezing time completely to attack enemies quickly. Each ability uses one Sand Tank, and when all tanks are empty, these powers are unavailable until more Sands are collected. More powerful abilities, like freezing time, require Power Tanks. Collecting Sands increases the number of available Power Tanks and unlocks new abilities. At the start, the Prince has a small amount of Sand, which can be increased by defeating enemies, collecting Sand Clouds, or interacting with large Sand columns that also act as save points.
The Game Boy Advance version shares basic elements with other versions of the game. It uses a side-scrolling view, where the Prince moves through the palace of Azad using acrobatic skills. The Rewind ability is still available to help the Prince avoid death, solve puzzles, and fight bosses. The Prince gains new moves and abilities by completing tasks and solving puzzles. Farah is a playable character in some sections, and switching between the Prince and Farah is needed for certain puzzles. The game includes role-playing elements, such as attacks that weaken enemies and combat stats that improve by rescuing citizens from the Sands. The mobile version is also a side-scroller with simple puzzles and traps. It does not include Sand-based powers, but enemies must still be defeated by stabbing them with the Dagger. There are three types of enemies: archers, flying enemies, and foot soldiers.
Plot
In Persia during the 9th century AD, a prince tells a story to someone who is not seen. The prince and his father’s army are traveling through India to meet the Sultan of Azad. A Vizier, who works for a Maharaja, wants to stop the Maharaja from dying by using a substance called the Sands of Time. The Vizier tricks the prince and his army into attacking the Maharaja’s palace, where the Sands are kept. During the battle, the prince takes an object called the Dagger of Time, and the Maharaja’s daughter, Farah, is captured and given to the Sultan of Azad.
When the prince visits Azad, the Vizier tricks him into releasing the Sands of Time. This turns everyone except the prince, the Vizier, and Farah into monsters. The Vizier tries to take the Dagger from the prince, but the prince escapes. He later teams up with Farah to fix the damage and stop the Sands from covering the world, even though he is unsure if she is truly loyal.
Although the prince and Farah do not trust each other at first, they slowly begin to care for one another. After exploring the palace of Azad and reaching the hourglass that holds the Sands in the Tower of Dawn, the prince hesitates when Farah tells him how to stop the Sands. He is unsure if he can trust her because he keeps seeing visions of her taking the Dagger from him. The Vizier attacks them, and they barely escape with the Dagger, ending up in a tomb beneath the city.
While trying to leave the tomb, Farah shares a story from her childhood that she has never told anyone. Later, they find shelter in a mysterious bathhouse, and Farah invites the prince to spend the night with her. When the prince wakes up in the palace, he discovers that Farah took the Dagger while he was asleep and left him a medallion to protect him. He follows her and saves her just before she is pushed over a ledge above the hourglass by monsters. Farah lets go of the Dagger and falls to her death to save the prince.
As the prince mourns, the Vizier offers him eternal life in exchange for the Dagger. The prince refuses and uses the Dagger to destroy the hourglass. Time goes back to before the attack on the Maharaja’s palace, and the prince still has the Dagger and his memories. He runs to warn Farah about the Vizier’s plan. It is revealed that the prince has been telling his story to Farah, and when he finishes, the Vizier enters to kill him. The prince kills the Vizier and returns the Dagger to Farah, who thinks the story was just a tale.
The prince kisses Farah, but she refuses him because she no longer remembers loving him. The prince rewinds time to undo the kiss. Before leaving, the prince tells Farah a private word he heard during their time in the tomb, proving to her that his story was real.
Development
The idea for The Sands of Time began in early 2001, after Ubisoft purchased the Prince of Persia license. Although Ubisoft owned the license, the intellectual property (IP) rights belonged to Jordan Mechner, the series’ original creator. Mechner was not eager to return to the series after having a difficult experience with Prince of Persia 3D. The game was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, which was also working on Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. After creating some sample materials, Ubisoft invited Mechner to review their work. He was impressed and joined as a creative consultant. Over time, he became more involved, eventually serving as the game’s designer and writer. Full production started in June 2001, with a team of 65 people, known as the "PoP Team." The team included many young workers, and the atmosphere focused on learning through mistakes and having fun. Development of The Sands of Time happened at the same time as Splinter Cell. The team studied One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern stories, for inspiration. They tested over 150 different versions of the game before finalizing the retail version.
The Sands of Time was announced in March 2003. It was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Windows. The versions came out gradually between October and November 2003. The Game Boy Advance version was released in North America on October 28 and in Europe on November 14. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions were available in North America on November 11, but they were shipped earlier: November 6 for PlayStation 2 and November 10 for Xbox. The PlayStation 2 version reached Europe on November 21. The GameCube and Windows versions were released on November 18 and December 2, with the Windows version arriving in Europe three days later. The GameCube and Xbox versions included a documentary about the game’s development. The PC version supported advanced sound features like EAX3. Gameloft created a mobile version of the game, released in April 2004. Two versions were made for different phone capabilities. Linking the GameCube and Game Boy Advance versions allowed players to access a version of the original Prince of Persia and use a feature that automatically restored the Prince’s health. The PlayStation 2 version was released in Japan on September 2, 2004, by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan.
The game’s title was created by the production team, but the original story was too complicated to work with. The first draft had nine characters, including the Prince, two love interests, two villains, and two helpers, set in the Prince’s palace. This storyline caused problems and was later abandoned. The team returned to the title The Sands of Time and focused on four main ideas: the game would take place in the palace of Azad over 24 hours; the Prince’s acrobatic moves would be central to gameplay; the palace would have monsters to create an exciting pace; and the ability to rewind time would be a key feature. The team avoided using Prince of Persia 3D as a reference, instead looking to the original 1989 game. The rewind feature was inspired by the idea of undoing mistakes, and it became important to both the story and gameplay. The Dagger of Time and the Sands were created to explain how the rewind mechanic worked. The Prince’s acrobatics were inspired by movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix. A game called Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater also influenced the Prince’s movements. Some ideas, like using ladders in combat or riding a magic carpet, were removed early in development. The rewind feature was suggested by the game’s director, Patrice Désilets, after playing Donald Duck: Goin’ Quackers.
The game was also influenced by Ico, a video game where the castle feels real. The team studied Ico for a full day and tried to make the palace in The Sands of Time feel similar. The way the Prince interacts with the female character, Farah, was inspired by Ico but changed so she was not just a tool for opening doors. The palace’s design was also inspired by the animated film The King and the Mockingbird, which shows a castle with levels based on rank. The art team used blue lighting and detailed environments to create a beautiful, Arabian Nights-inspired setting.
The pre-production phase was expected to take 10 months but lasted 14 months. Every new movement or ability the Prince had required changes to other systems. Adjustments were also needed for enemy and partner AI, but the team did not have time to polish these systems. Debugging started later than planned. The Prince had over 780 scripted movements, more than any other character in the game. This made it harder to create movements for other characters. The team used motion capture to make the Prince’s movements realistic. The art director, Raphael Lacoste, joined the team in July 2002, causing delays in designing the game’s environments. The team also had to create a demo for the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo and deliver a game of equal or higher quality. Each environment had to work with the Prince’s movements and abilities, which required testing every rewind sequence and movement. Delays in receiving environmental maps added to the challenges. Producer Yannis Mallat later said the team should have planned better to avoid these issues.
Reception
By the end of 2003, sales of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time reached 2 million copies. Ubisoft noted the game's success in Europe in a quarterly business report. In February 2004, Europe accounted for 1.1 million sales. By the end of March 2004, worldwide sales had risen to 2.4 million units. In North America, the game had low sales during its debut: by December 2003, the PS2 version had sold 218,000 copies, the Xbox version 128,000 copies, and the GameCube version 85,000 copies. Total sales for each version at that time were 272,000 (PS2), 172,000 (Xbox), and 100,000 (GameCube). It was believed that the game's sales were hurt by the simultaneous release of Beyond Good & Evil and other popular games at the time. In response, Ubisoft offered free copies of other games with purchases of The Sands of Time, which helped increase sales. By July 2006, the PlayStation 2 version alone had sold 700,000 copies in North America, generating about $24 million in revenue. During its release week in Japan, the game reached seventh place on the charts, selling 14,000 copies. This was considered high for a Western game released in Japan. By the end of 2004, it had sold 26,116 copies in Japan. The game received a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), showing sales of at least 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom. As of 2014, the game had sold over 14 million copies worldwide across all platforms.
The Sands of Time received strong praise from critics when it was released. Edge said the game was highly commendable, even though some parts were difficult due to enemies that reappeared. IGN’s Matt Casamassina said the experience was enjoyable for both fans of Prince of Persia and those with a general interest in action-adventure games, calling it a "must own" and a "soon-to-be-classic." 1UP.com noted that the camera controls were tricky but said the game was exciting. GameSpot’s Greg Kasavin said the game was highly recommended and named it the best game of November 2003 for GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. Eurogamer and Official PlayStation Magazine compared the game’s visuals and style to Ico positively. Francesca Reyes of Official Xbox Magazine praised the story and gameplay but found combat challenging at times. She also said the game left players wanting more. Famitsu gave the PlayStation 2 version a good review, saying the action was smooth and challenging, similar to the original Prince of Persia. One reviewer said the Prince character was "colorful."
The PC version received similar praise to the console version but faced some criticism for camera controls and responsiveness. The Game Boy Advance version had lower scores than the console and PC versions due to simpler gameplay and presentation but was still generally praised as a good port. Nintendo Power said the acrobatic moves and traps in the game were as smooth as those in The Sands of Time. IGN’s Levi Buchanan praised the mobile version’s adaptation of the game’s actions and atmosphere, giving it a score of 9.5 out of 10. 1UP.com’s Corey Padnos liked the Prince’s acrobatic moves and overall performance but noted the absence of time-based mechanics and plot elements from the main games.
At E3 2003, The Sands of Time was named "Game of the Year." It was also named "Editor’s Choice" by GameSpot and IGN. At the 2003 Game Critics Awards, it won "Best Action/Adventure Game." The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences honored it in 2004 with awards for "Console Game of the Year," "Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year," and "Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year." It also received awards for "Outstanding Innovation in Computer Gaming," "Animation," "Game Design," "Gameplay Engineering," and "Visual Engineering." At the 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards, it won "Excellence in Game Design" and "Excellence in Programming" and was nominated for "Game of the Year" and "Excellence in Visual Arts."
In 2009, Official Nintendo Magazine ranked it the 86th best game on Nintendo platforms. The staff praised the developer’s successful shift from 2D to 3D. IGN and Edge included it in their lists of the 100 greatest games of all time in 2005 and 2007, respectively. Computer and Video Games placed it on its 2007 list of the 101 best PC games ever. In 2010, GamePro named it the 13th best PlayStation 2 game of all time.
Legacy
One year after the game was released, it was shown on a TV show called How It's Made in a part about making video games. The game helped bring back interest in the Prince of Persia series, which had not been popular since Prince of Persia 3D. In 2004, the game's creator, Mechner, started working on a movie version, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The movie was released in 2010. Because the game was successful, a sequel called Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was made quickly. It had a more serious look and was released in November 2004. More sequels followed, all connected to The Sands of Time. Ideas from the game, like the relationship between the Prince and Farah, later influenced a 2008 remake of the Prince of Persia series.
The Assassin's Creed series began with ideas for a sequel to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. After the game's success, Ubisoft asked its Montreal team to create a sequel for the next generation of consoles. The team changed the gameplay from The Sands of Time to an open world, using better technology to create larger spaces and crowds. For the story, they wanted the Prince to work for his position instead of just being next in line for the throne. Research into secret societies led them to focus on the Assassins, taking ideas from the book Alamut. They created a story where the player controls an Assassin who protects a non-playable Prince. This game was called Prince of Persia: Assassin. A device called the "Animus" helped explain parts of the gameplay, like how the player could retry missions after failing, similar to The Sands of Time.
A new version of the game was made by studios in India, Ubisoft Mumbai and Ubisoft Pune. It was announced in 2020 and originally planned for release on January 21, 2021, for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The original voice actor for the Prince, Lowenthal, returned, and Farah was voiced by Supinder Wraich. Some fans criticized the game's graphics, saying they looked poor, even though it used the latest version of Ubisoft Anvil. Ubisoft said the style was intentional to make the game stand out because of its fantasy elements. The release was delayed to March 18, then pushed back indefinitely to "create a fresh remake while staying true to the original." In 2021, Ubisoft said the game would be released during its 2022–2023 financial year. By May 2022, Ubisoft Montreal took over development. A month later, Ubisoft delayed the game again, saying it no longer aimed for a 2022–2023 release.
In November 2023, the official Prince of Persia social media account said the project reached an important milestone and development was continuing. At Ubisoft Forward in June 2024, Ubisoft announced the remake would release in 2026 under the original title Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. In January 2026, Ubisoft confirmed the remake was among several projects canceled during a major company restructuring.