Prince of Persia: The Dagger of Time is the Latest LBE Attraction From Ubisoft

In September of last year, VRFocus reported on Ubisoft building a team specifically for virtual reality (VR) content development, with a lot of the positions at its Dusseldorf office – formerly Ubisoft Blue Byte. The team specialised in location-based entertainment (LBE) having already created Assassin’s Creed Origins: Escape the Lost Pyramid and Beyond Medusa’s Gate. Now its latest project has been unveiled, taking gamers on another immersive journey inside a popular videogame IP with  Prince of Persia: The Dagger of Time.

Prince of PersiaBased on The Sands of Time trilogy, the narrative involves players being summoned to the Fortress of Time by Kaileena (the Empress of Time) to stop an evil Magi. Kaileena restores and gives the Dagger of Time to the players so they can reach the Hourglass Chamber and use it to stop the Magi, preventing an army of Sand Monsters from being unleashed.

The experience is designed for between 2 – 4 players, cooperating with teammates to complete the shared goal. Prince of Persia: The Dagger of Time will require players to solve puzzles by using the titular artefact’s powers to stop, rewind, or fast-forward time as well as utilising the benefits of roomscale VR, climbing walls and exploring the digital space.

“Our VR escape rooms are meant to be larger-than-life adventures; something you can’t do in the real world, something you can totally immerse yourself into once you put on the VR headset. Prince of Persia ticked all the boxes,” said Cyril Voiron, executive producer for Ubisoft Escape Games in a blog post. “The Sands of Time series seemed to be the perfect fit, because it not only offers a fantasy setting, but the original games also come with many elements that fit perfectly into VR, such as puzzles and, of course, using powers such as time control.”

Detailing a little more about how the gameplay works, Voiron went on to say: “Only the player who holds the Dagger of Time in their hands can control time, and they can stop, rewind, or move time forward. When they do so, we added some visual and audio cues so the other players also realize that time is being manipulated. It is quite impressive the first time that you can freeze the world around you!”

Prince of Persia: The Dagger of Time will be made available to VR arcades worldwide who use the Ubisoft Escape Games platform this Spring. For further updates on Ubisoft’s latest LBE VR offerings, keep reading VRFocus.

Ubisoft Building 50 Person Team for Unannounced VR Project

It was once the case that large videogame developers had no interest in virtual reality (VR) content creation due to the fact the technology was so niche. Slowly but surely several studios have come to embrace VR such as Bethesda, Gearbox Studios, and Ubisoft. Actually, Ubisoft was one of the earliest creating titles like Werewolves Within, Eagle Flight, Star Trek: Bridge Crew and most recently Space Junkies. Today, VRFocus has learnt Ubisoft is now hiring for a specialist VR team.

Space Junkies

The company is looking to build a 50 person strong team to work on an unannounced VR project, a AAA title which will use one of Ubisoft’s biggest IP’s. There are plenty to choose from when it comes to well-known Ubisoft brands including  Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy the list goes on.

“Not all our positions are on our website yet but we are building a 50 people team right now for this new project, focusing right now on the core team but more positions will follow!” a Ubisoft spokesperson told VRFocus.

Some of these positions can already be found on Ubisoft’s career website, all based in Dusseldorf, Germany:

Star Trek: Dark Remnant

It looks as though the team will be part of Ubisoft Blue Byte, a Dusseldorf-based studio which has worked on several brands including Anno and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. Ubisoft Blue Byte is also behind two location-based entertainment (LBE) for VR arcades Assassin’s Creed Origins: Escape the Lost Pyramid and Beyond Medusa’s Gate. The unannounced VR project will be separate, however: “And to be clear, this new team that we are building is a different team than the Escape Room VR team!” said the spokesperson.

This project could very well be related to the July rumour that Facebook had reportedly signed a deal with Ubisoft for Assassin’s Creed and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell exclusives. Nothing has been confirmed to date but as mentioned they are two of the biggest IP’s the videogame company has, warranting a decent team. As further details come to light regarding Ubisoft’s plans, VRFocus will let you know.