Although Dead Cells was originally created by Motion Twin studio, its long life was ensured by a small team called Evil Empire, which was tasked with continuing to support the sudden hit in 2019.
For five years, the developers released add-ons and would certainly have continued to do so, but the original creators had other plans. In 2024, a sudden decision was made to discontinue support for the roguelike — apparently to shift the audience’s attention to Motion Twin’s new project called Windblown.
Evil Empire did not sit idly by and took up another game — The Rogue Prince of Persia. In essence, it is Dead Cells in a different wrapper, which spent just over a year in early access on Steam and is now available in version 1.0.
Die to return
The game tells the story of the Great Persian War, during which hordes of Huns led by King Nogai attacked Persia.
Our main character, the nameless Prince, fought Nogai — but lost and lay unconscious for three days.
A mysterious amulet helps the Prince become stronger and regain his strength, allowing him to travel back in time in the event of death, but not too far — he is transported to a moment several days after the invasion began.
Therefore, something has already been destroyed, someone has already been kidnapped, but the opportunity to meet Nogai and his henchmen remains — the Prince will take advantage of it, saving his friends and relatives who have been affected by the war along the way.
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That is, it is a classic roguelike, in which the plot explains why, after his death, the Prince returns to the beginning of the journey each time. He uses his magical amulet not only to become stronger with each attempt and defeat bosses faster, but also to thoroughly explore locations.
The game features a so-called mental map, where various findings are recorded. If you encounter someone under the rubble and need to get to the same place from the other side, the Prince records this information and can even gain access to a completely new region that he did not want to visit before this quest.
There, you find another detail or learn some information, and after that, for example, you need to return to camp (that is, start the race again) and ask someone something. Then the next stage begins — you need to go to a certain place again.
Otherwise, The Rogue Prince of Persia is structurally no different from other roguelikes, including Dead Cells. At the beginning of the game, we pick up weapons, fight, and reach a door that takes us to the next region.
There, we repeat the same thing, collect better equipment, and prepare to face the first boss. If we defeat him, we move on and continue to search for and buy items that make us stronger. If we die, it’s not a big deal — although all our equipment is taken away, the currency we’ve accumulated allows us to unlock all sorts of useful things in the camp.
Parkour is also used in combat — you don’t just roll or tumble, you swing over enemies and use the walls in the background to run behind your opponent and dodge attacks.
This is especially useful in boss battles, but acrobatics also helps against ordinary demons — if you see an archer aiming at you or a boss about to set the Prince on fire with a beam, just run along the wall, jump, run again, and in a moment you’ll land in a safe place. And all this can be done without using any platforms — often there are none nearby. Sometimes you grab the wrong thing and fall on spikes or lose a little health, but that’s a minor detail.
In the vast majority of cases, parkour is so good that other roguelikes without such mechanics may not be as fun to play.
