Pleasing fans of a long-running franchise is always a tough feat, but Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown continues to renew faith in Ubisoft’s vision of the series. With the game’s first taste of post-launch DLC arriving with the Mask of Darkness, The Lost Crown has gained a seemingly unlikely new fan: horror filmmaker John Carpenter.
While the Mask of Darkness is still delayed in some regions, Carpenter appears to have been making his way through the base game in his spare time. In a recent social media post, he expresses that “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a great game. Old school side scrolling adventure renews the promise of the old franchise. Highly recommended.” Pretty glowing praise, wouldn’t you say? Sounds like Carpenter would agree with our own Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown review.
It hasn’t taken long for word of Carpenter’s positive comments to reach Ubisoft, either. Responding with a playful image of The Lost Crown’s Sargon, the prominent open world game developer sends its gratitude: “Thanks for the kind words, boss.”
However, perhaps the most important response is that of Jordan Mechner, the designer of the original Prince of Persia which was released for the Apple 2 in 1989. Mechner says “your films were formative for me. This one [Big Trouble In Little China] came out while I was programming the first Prince of Persia on Apple II.”
He adds that he “even mail-ordered the screenplay to study it–one of the first physical scripts I owned. Thank you; your post made my day.” Carpenter’s love for gaming, whether it is new Switch games or horror games like Dead Space, has become more prevalent over the years.
In an interview with Insider last year, Carpenter casts aside his reputation as a horror pioneer, sharing that he believes he “not a master of anything […] I just want to play video games and watch basketball. That’s all I care about doing. I don’t want to bother anybody.” Honestly, that’s a mood we can all relate to.
Carpenter’s next foray into video games continues with RetroRealms’ Halloween x Evil Dead game, a brand-new Halloween game, and the upcoming FPS game Toxic Commandos.