Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is an action-adventure game released in 2005. It was created by Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Casablanca and published by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Microsoft Windows, Xbox, and Java (mobile phones only). In 2007, the game was released again for the PlayStation Portable and Wii under the name Prince of Persia: Rival Swords. The Wii version uses the motion-sensing feature of its controller, while the PlayStation Portable version includes exclusive content and local multiplayer.
The Two Thrones is the sixth main game in the Prince of Persia series and the final part of the Sands of Time trilogy. However, it is not the last game set in this story universe. The story follows the Prince as he returns to Babylon, only to discover that his actions in Warrior Within have changed the events of The Sands of Time. The villain, the Vizier, returns from the dead and kills the Prince’s companion, Kaileena. He takes the Sands of Time from her, turning him into an immortal monster. The Prince must now team up with Farah, a character he meets for the first time in this timeline, to defeat the Vizier. At the same time, he must fight against his own Dark Prince persona, which is slowly changing him.
When the game was first released, it received mostly positive reviews. Critics praised the story, characters, level design, graphics, combat, and a new feature called the speed kill mechanic. However, the PlayStation Portable and Wii versions received much lower scores than the others. The game was also a commercial success, selling over 1.5 million copies within a month of its release. After The Two Thrones, the series was restarted again in 2008 with Prince of Persia. The story returned to the Sands of Time timeline in 2010 with Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, which takes place between the events of The Sands of Time and Warrior Within.
Gameplay
The game includes exploration and combat. Both activities use the Prince's acrobatic skills and agility. Most of the game requires the player to move through the palace by running across walls, jumping between walls to cross chasms, avoiding traps, climbing structures, jumping between platforms, making timed leaps, solving puzzles, and using found objects to move forward. There are also sections where the Prince rides a chariot along a long road at high speed. During these parts, the player must avoid obstacles and fight enemies.
During combat, many of the same moves used for exploration can be used to defeat enemies. For example, the Prince can jump from walls to strike enemies. The player usually attacks and blocks with a dagger, but other items, like the Dagger of Time and its time-control abilities, become important for winning. The Dagger of Time can be improved by disabling "sand gates" that enemies use to summon more enemies. This increases the number of sand charges the Dagger can hold and unlocks two new abilities that use multiple charges to harm or destroy enemies at once. The game continues the freeform fighting style from Warrior Within, allowing the Prince to pick up secondary weapons from defeated enemies or weapon racks and use them in dual-wield combat. Most weapons have limited durability and become unusable after being hit multiple times, thrown, or dropped when the Prince transforms into the Dark Prince. The Wii version of the 2007 game Rival Swords uses the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to control attacks, with the Remote swinging the Dagger and the Nunchuk swinging the secondary weapon.
In The Two Thrones, the Prince's acrobatic skills have improved. He can now jump off walls at 45-degree angles to hit vertical shutters, slide down chutes, and balance on swinging poles. The game also improves the stealth system. Instead of just dealing more damage when attacking unseen enemies, the game uses a "Speed Kill" system that gives the player one chance to instantly defeat an enemy or two. To succeed, the player must press the attack button at specific times (with the number of hits and timing depending on the enemy). If the player fails, the enemy pushes the Prince away. This system is also used in some boss battles. Combat includes graphic violence effects that can be turned on or off in the game's settings, but these effects are removed in Rival Swords.
The Prince also gains a split personality called the Dark Prince. This alter ego constantly argues with the Prince in his mind about right and wrong, usually as an inner voice. At certain times, the Prince automatically transforms into the Dark Prince, and the player cannot choose this transformation. During these times, the Prince still controls his body, and the player controls the character. When controlling the Dark Prince, the player cannot use a secondary weapon and instead uses the "Daggertail," a bladed whip attached to his arm. This weapon can attack enemies at mid-range and is needed to pull blocks from walls or grapple along torches and high bars to cross gaps. The Dark Prince loses health continuously during the transformation, and death occurs if all health is lost. He regains full health by collecting "Sand" from monsters or objects. The Daggertail has a different control method for speed kills, where the player repeatedly presses the attack button to make the Dark Prince cut off enemies' heads (or strangle them if blood effects are disabled). The Prince returns to normal when stepping into water, which cannot be avoided.
Throughout the game, the Prince can find up to six side routes to earn health upgrades and collect "sand credits" to unlock concept art by gathering sand charges, destroying sand chests, and disabling sand gates in the city. The Prince can only recover health by drinking water from specific areas or at save fountains. He can also fully recover health when switching between the Prince and the Dark Prince. If the Prince or Dark Prince loses all health, dies in a chariot accident, or falls to his death, and the player does not use the Dagger's recall power to reverse the death, the game continues from the last save fountain used or the most recent checkpoint. Some checkpoints are placed between save fountains.
The PlayStation Portable version of the 2007 game Rival Swords adds more chariot sequences and requires the player to complete an obstacle course inside a sand gate to disable it. This version also includes a local wireless 2-player racing mode where the Prince and the Dark Prince race against each other. This mode requires skilled platforming and includes multiple routes and traps that the opponent can activate.
Plot
The game takes place right after the events of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, where the Prince defeats the Dahaka, saves Kaileena, and stops the creation of the Sands of Time. Unlike earlier games, the story is told by Kaileena. The Prince’s actions change the timeline of events that happened before. In the original timeline, the Vizier and Maharajah traveled to the Island of Time and found an hourglass filled with the Sands of Time. In this changed timeline, they find the hourglass empty. Because the Vizier never released the Sands of Time and fought the Prince, he is alive at the start of the game. As a result, Farah, who helped the Prince during the events of Sands of Time, has never met the Prince and never traveled to Azad with him.
As the Prince and Kaileena return to the city of Babylon, they find it destroyed by war. Their ship is attacked and destroyed, and they wash ashore. The Prince wakes up and watches as enemy soldiers take Kaileena away. The Prince fights into the palace and confronts the Vizier, who kills Kaileena with the Dagger of Time, releasing the Sands again. The Vizier then impales himself with the dagger and becomes immortal. The Prince is also affected, as the Sands infect a wound on his body, causing a whip-like weapon called a Daggertail to grow into his skin. However, during the chaos after the Sands are released, the Vizier throws the dagger aside, and the Prince manages to take it before the Sands fully infect him.
The Prince falls into the sewers and is carried to the outskirts of Babylon. As he travels through the city again to fight the Vizier, the Sands of Time begin to affect his mind, creating an alternate self called the Dark Prince, which appears as a voice within him. The Dark Prince is cold, cruel, arrogant, and sarcastic. He tries to convince the Prince to act only for himself, using his anger as a way to control his emotions. At times, the Dark Prince takes control of the Prince’s body, transforming him into a sand monster with abilities that help him overcome obstacles. The Prince hides his transformation from others, especially after people see him defeat Klompa, a general of the Vizier, in an arena and begin to notice changes in him.
Later, the Prince meets Farah, who is surprised that he knows her name. Despite this, the two develop a new relationship. However, the Dark Prince’s influence causes Farah to doubt the Prince’s character. After Farah rescues women from a brothel and the Prince briefly leaves to defeat Mahasti, another general of the Vizier, Farah discovers the Prince transformed into the Dark Prince after he kills Mahasti. Her distrust of him grows, and she tries to avoid him. The Prince continues his journey alone.
Realizing the harm the Dark Prince’s influence is causing in his relationship with Farah, the Prince decides to change his behavior and ignore the Dark Prince. He resolves to help his people, which the Dark Prince had always opposed. With occasional help from the Dark Prince’s powers, the Prince reaches the royal workshop and uses a statue of his father to break through a wall, freeing people trapped in a fire, including an old man from Warrior Within, who now hopes the Prince can save his empire after doubting his ability to change fate. The Prince then fights two more generals of the Vizier, the Twin Warriors, who wield a sword and an axe. The Prince kills the sword-wielding Twin Warrior while Farah returns to defeat the axe-wielding one. They are later surrounded by the Vizier’s sand army but are saved by rescued citizens of Babylon, who form an unexpected army to help them escape.
They reunite at the palace entrance, where the Prince apologizes to Farah for his past arrogance and recklessness under the Dark Prince’s influence. The Prince then fixes an elevator to take them to the palace’s hanging gardens. In the gardens, the Vizier captures Farah and throws the Prince into an ancient well, where the Dark Prince reappears and tries to take permanent control. The Prince resists the power, searching for an escape but weakening as he goes deeper. At the bottom of the well, the Prince finds the body of his father, Sharaman. He mourns for him, picks up his father’s sword, and accepts the consequences of his actions to finally suppress the Dark Prince’s control. With renewed determination, the Prince fights his way back to the palace and ascends its tower to confront the Vizier and rescue Farah.
At the top of the tower, the Prince kills the Vizier with the Dagger of Time. The Sands are released from the Vizier and his soldiers, who die. The people of Babylon celebrate as the Sands take the form of Kaileena, who cures the Prince’s infection and destroys the Dagger of Time. She tells the Prince that this world was not meant for her but that there will be other worlds where she can find her place. She also tells the Prince that his journey is over and then disappears. As the Prince finds Sharaman’s crown, the Dark Prince takes it and claims that whatever belongs to the Prince will be his. The Dark Prince lures the Prince into his mind, where they struggle until the Prince, with Farah’s voice, lets go of his shadow. The unconscious Prince is awakened by Farah. The game ends with her asking how the Prince knows her name, and the Prince begins to tell a story about his first experience with the Sands of Time from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
Development
When Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was released in 2004, many players praised its new gameplay features. However, the game’s visual changes, such as the music style and the introduction of a new character named Farah, caused mixed reactions among fans. The game’s director, Jean-Christophe Guyot, hoped that the next game in the series, The Two Thrones, would bring the series back together after some fans felt divided by Warrior Within.
Production of The Two Thrones began in 2004 at Ubisoft Casablanca, while Ubisoft Montreal completed work on Warrior Within. The team had always planned The Sands of Time story as a trilogy, showing the Prince’s character development. During early planning, the game was called Prince of Persia 3 or Prince of Persia: Kindred Blades. Later, production moved to Ubisoft Montreal due to technical issues and the game’s dark tone. Ubisoft Casablanca still received credit for the game’s early design and aesthetic choices. The final production at Ubisoft Montreal took about nine months, the shortest time of any Sands of Time game, but was very stressful for the team.
Much of the gameplay was redesigned, but some features from the earlier version, like climbing between walls and stealth attacks, remained. The free-form combat style from Warrior Within was kept, with some improvements. A new feature called the Speed Kill was added to make The Two Thrones stand out. Other changes included chariot sections and adjustments to enemy behavior to match the Prince’s expanded abilities.
A new character, the Dark Prince, was introduced as a representation of the Prince’s negative traits. The goal was to show the Prince facing the corruption of the Sands firsthand. The Dark Prince was influenced by Islamic mythology and similar characters from earlier games. His continuous loss of health was controversial but decided by executives. The transformation between the Prince and the Dark Prince was not player-controlled due to technical limits on the PlayStation 2.
The game’s action was inspired by Hollywood and Asian films. Animators created character movements without using motion capture. The visual style was based on photos taken in Morocco and Islamic architecture. This design allowed for more open spaces and creative gameplay. The Prince was shown as a mature warrior with scars and a visible injury from the Sands.
Writers Corey May and Dooma Wendschuh returned to script The Two Thrones. The story was simplified to focus on the Prince’s character rather than complex plot twists. Early plans included time travel, but these were removed. The final story centered on the Prince’s struggle with his dark side. The Dark Prince was originally meant to be a physical opponent, but the final battle took place in a mental realm, inspired by movies like Fight Club and Spider-Man. The ending showed the Prince overcoming his dark side, symbolizing his growth.
Composer Inon Zur returned to create the soundtrack, working with Stuart Chatwood. The music used more Eastern and orchestral elements compared to earlier games. Sound effects were designed to feel realistic and immersive.
Voice recording for the game was completed in 2005. Yuri Lowenthal returned to voice the Prince because fans wanted him. The Dark Prince was originally meant to be voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, but Rick Miller took the role instead. Miller, who had no prior gaming experience, found it challenging to perform intense sounds. Helen King voiced Farah, using sketches of the character to guide her performance. Lowenthal recorded his lines in Los Angeles, while King recorded hers in Montreal.
Release
The game The Two Thrones was announced in May 2005. A different company made the announcement trailer using materials and ideas provided by the game's creators. Most of the story was already planned, but some parts, like the Prince's look and Kaileena's role, were still being changed. It was also released with a separate strategy game called Battles of Prince of Persia. This game takes place between the two earlier games in the series and is only available on Nintendo DS.
Reception
By December 2005, The Two Thrones had sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide. The game earned a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), which means it sold at least 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom.
The Two Thrones and Rival Swords received mixed to positive reviews from critics. The original release of The Two Thrones was considered slightly better than its re-release. GameRankings and Metacritic gave the game scores of 86.45% and 85 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version; 86.35% and 85 out of 100 for the Xbox version; 85.25% and 84 out of 100 for the GameCube version; 82.81% and 85 out of 100 for the PC version; 82.40% for the mobile version; 71.22% and 70 out of 100 for the Wii version; and 70.44% and 74 out of 100 for the PSP version.
IGN gave the PC version of The Two Thrones a score of 9 out of 10, stating, "Two Thrones is great. The story is cool, the heroes are likable, the weak are pitiable, the villains are bastards, the major plot points are exciting, the art is grand, the sound is wonderful…and then the gameplay comes." GameSpy gave the original release of The Two Thrones four stars, noting that the PC version had "stunning" settings and "sharper, more detailed graphics" compared to console versions. GameSpy gave Rival Swords a half-star lower rating. GameSpot gave the PC version of The Two Thrones a score of 8.4 out of 10.
Non-video game publications also gave the game positive reviews. The A.V. Club gave it an A−, saying, "The nice thing about sequels to successful games is that all the rough edges are buffed out, and The Two Thrones honors its graceful hero with impeccable controls and design." Maxim gave it a score of 8 out of 10, stating that the game "gets points for using stealth skills similar to Sam Fisher and a whip-like weapon that might remind some players of God of War." The Times gave a favorable review, saying, "The graphics are superb, especially on the Xbox, and if you can handle replaying tricky scenes, this could be the game for you." The Sydney Morning Herald gave it four stars out of five, highlighting the "Speed Kill," a stealth attack that requires timed button presses. The Detroit Free Press gave the PlayStation 2 version three stars out of four, praising the "superb" fighting and the "speed kill" feature. However, Charles Herold of The New York Times gave it an average review, saying, "I felt all the pleasure the game had given me had been taken back."
At the 9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, The Two Thrones was nominated for "Action/Adventure Game of the Year," "Outstanding Achievement in Animation," and "Outstanding Character Performance – Female" by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
Legacy
In the movie version of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, features of the Dark Prince character are shown, such as his weapon called the Daggertail, which is used by an enemy assassin. For the Wii version of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, a game created to promote the movie, two special outfits or items can be unlocked. These are based on Two Thrones: one is a weapon design similar to the king’s sword obtained near the end of Two Thrones, and the other is a costume inspired by the Dark Prince. The regular appearance of the Prince in Two Thrones is also used as a costume in the Nintendo DS version of The Forgotten Sands.