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Brand New Medallion System with 50 New Medallions is here!

Hello everyone!

It’s XYZ and Berenger again, because your and our beloved Matt had to be out of the office for the release of this update. But don’t worry, we’re saving his writing skills for the Mother of All Update in November. And for this month, the update of [h2]the New Medallion System – Risks and Rewards[/h2] - has arrived as promised! Ok, maybe a little later than promised ^^’

But hey, before we get into the main course, let’s enjoy the starter first:
[h2]New Gameplay: Rescue[/h2]

You now have the possibility to bump into a little girl who is being hunted by the Huns’ corruption. The Prince never leaves one of his people in danger, so you will have to use your epic platforming and parkour skills to rescue her, just like in the reveal trailer! In return, generous rewards are waiting for you, hence the title of the update.


Since the motto for this update was to bring more “Variety”, you can consider this as a kind of side quest which aims to bring a new dynamic to the gameplay, and, for those who keep asking for more challenging rooms in the level, this will definitely satisfy your desires!

Note: rescue missions will appear in a random biome and shall only appear once per run. If you want to skip this mission, you can just stand there for a few seconds until the corruption runs off the screen.

Follow the black mist of the corruption to destroy its origin and rescue the victims

Hope you enjoy the starter and let’s see if the main course will surprise you more:
[h2]Here comes a shiny new Medallion System![/h2]

The medallion system before:

Medallions should allow you to create your ‘build’ – a key part of pretty much every roguelite. The first version of this system was too complicated/obscure, so people were spending ages on the medallion selection menu (ergo not spending time enjoying the gameplay), didn’t see where to create synergies, and many medallions were too niche, so their triggers/synergies were rarely seen even if you knew what you’re doing.

This had two effects – people didn’t realize that there’s this whole other layer to the game so they thought the game is too simple, which is rarely a good thing, and they also didn’t know how to reach higher levels of damage that you can get from good builds and so they got stuck at lower difficulties.

The medallion system now:

We reworked the whole medallion system to solve all the problems we noticed above. It should be more intuitive, you should have more freedom when you create a build, and so there’s more fun and replayability in the game. If you play a few runs and find that it doesn’t achieve these things, then please do leave us your feedback as we want it to be perfect!

[h3]System Main Changes: [/h3]
The boosting effect based on adjacent medallion placement is removed, no more strict limitations.

Gathering & Equipment
  • You can now potentially equip 12 medallions (YES, 12) in a run, but with only 3 medallion slots unlocked at the beginning with the other 9 able to be unlocked during the run.
  • You will randomly gain medallions by killing enemies, while chests and altars still serve as the main source to obtain more.
  • The medallions you earned by killing will be automatically stored in your bag (congrats, you have a new bag as an update gift!). You can open the bag to see what medallions you’ve got and which ones you want to equip.


Upgrading Inventory & Medallions
  • This upgrading system is all about trade-off – sacrificing 1 medallion to unlock 1 new medallion slot or to upgrade 1 medallion you’ve already got.
  • Astara will work full time on upgrading medallions, which means no more weapon upgrade at their shop.
  • Moksha Altar is reworked to give you new medallion slots (upgrade your inventory).


With this new system, we are also bringing you:
[h2]50 brand-new Medallions [/h2]
Meanwhile, all the legacy medallions have been removed, so let’s mourn them for 5 seconds...
5
4
3
2
1
You’ll see now there are way more badass builds, with many satisfying synergies between weapons and medallions. We hope that after finishing a run, you’ll start another run to chase that sweet OP build and feel the POWER.

I will just put some screenshots here to show how fun it can be with the synergy effect without spoiling the build’s formula - we prefer to let you explore and try different stuff yourself!


However, the system is not flawless for the moment. The effect of each medallion and the build you can create will certainly be a bit too OP sometimes. Our dev team is doing more balancing work which will be implemented soon. So enjoy the feeling of being an absolute god while you still can…

Aside from the gameplay, we’ve also started to get stuck into the narration.

Upon release, we received quite a lot of ‘mid’ reviews regarding the narration and dialogue. Part of the reason is that we only released the beginning of the story at first, but we can admit that a lot of elements that would flesh out the storytelling were just missing.

Our talented designers are still working on the polish of the existing narration, as well as the second Act of the story, which is coming in November, but we still prepared something in this update for you to get familiar with this world in advance.

So here we are, the dessert of this update:
[h2]Book of Heads [/h2]

This is a book compiling all the stories & knowledge of the mobs and the bosses in this world, from which you will get to know the origin of corruption, the complex relationships between bosses & more…

We don’t want to spoil it too much more, but if you are curious about the events of the invasion and what might happen in the future, just swing by Hun’s Camp, where a new NPC ‘Nyamtur’ will be waiting for you - he’ll tell you how to get this book.


This book will not give you such knowledge for free however, and you will have to complete numerous challenges to unlock what you seek.

Above are all the major changes, here are also some small tweaks:
  • Inventory rework to reflect the changes to medallions.
  • Medallions are now unlocked in packs instead of individually.
  • Moksha Altar is now a default ability, and the perk was removed from the skill tree.
  • Weapons can be upgraded at Blood Altars, at the cost of max HP.
  • Removed weapons from chests, they will only reward medallions now.
  • Improved boss rewards. There's now a special altar available after defeating a boss, with extra rewards.
  • Shop price is increased.
  • Audio polish (a lot, a lot, a lot...)


[h3]As usual, there are a lot of bugs fixed alongside: [/h3]

Patch Note for Weapons Within Hotfix

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your patience, the hotfix is finally here!

Menu/UI
  • Fixed an issue that caused potions counter, buffs counter and energy values to stop displaying
  • Fixed an issue with the skill tree menu that caused glimmers to still be spent when pressing the jump key with the menu closed
  • Fixed an issue with the skill tree menu sometimes not highlighting properly the perks purchased
  • Fixed an issue with the Awakening menu not displaying properly


Weapons/Medallions
  • Fixed Royal Sword only hitting one enemy at a time
  • Fixed Slayer dealing critical hits on protective auras
  • Fixed an issue that caused the attack input to become unresponsive after breaking a weapon
  • Fixed a soft lock when using weapons' special attack on a water slide
  • Fixed Pyromaniac medallion not applying fire


Gameplay
  • Fixed an issue with fall damage being lower than intended
  • Fixed a soft lock that could happen in Baatar's final room
  • Fixed an issue that caused some perks to duplicate upon resuming a save


Audio
  • Fixed an issue with teleporters' SFX volume
  • Polished a bunch of SFX and audio cues


Text
  • Polished Chinese Localization


Cheers,
XYZ & EE
(yes, Matt is still on his vacation!)

Excellent new roguelike from Dead Cells dev gets huge weapons update

If you love roguelikes, you need to play The Rogue Prince of Persia. It might be in Steam Early Access, but it's already shaping up to dethrone my favorites. Between the slick combat, movement, and unique art style, it offers an incredibly different experience from the genre you're used to. The problem is, it doesn't have nearly the number of players it deserves. Despite the pedigree of Dead Cells studio Evil Empire, the launch hasn't been that big. 2024 is filled with updates for the game, though, and the most recent one makes it well worth trying.


Read the rest of the story...


RELATED LINKS:

The Rogue Prince of Persia release date estimate and the latest news

New The Rogue Prince of Persia patch makes whole game much tougher

The Rogue Prince of Persia early access review - Cute and deadly

Tripled Weapon Pool: Weapons Within Update is out!

Hey everyone,

September is here and our copywriting HERO, best Marketing Manager EVER, charming English LEGEND...Matt, is finally on his well-deserved summer vacation. To fill in for him, especially with such a chunky update, we had to send over not 1 but 2 marketing bastards, XYZ & Berenger. As you know, Matt is so talented, so funny, and you guys are so dear to him that only 1 person is insufficient to hold his moustache. (Yeah Matt, I know you are embarrassed to read that from your hammock... that was the point.)

But you don’t really care about XYZ and Berenger, the only thing you want to know about is what we’ve promised in our update roadmap which is :

MORE WEAPONS

Behold: [h2] The Weapons Within Update![/h2]
(Yes, this title makes sense only if you get the Warrior Within reference, we couldn’t help it, sorry.)

Watch the trailer here:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]TLDR:[/h3]
  • 13 new weapons + 7 old weapons reworked + Falcata removed.
  • Weapon Rack added + lower weapon drop rate.
  • Rework on how you can spend spirit glimmers.
  • Gameplay: rework on resin effect & Vayu's Blast (speed boost) rebalancing.
  • UI / Menu Tweaks.
  • Skill tree: a new perk added under Mithra.
  • Some bug fixes.


Since the release, we’ve received a lot of feedback related to weapons, which is mainly about: underwhelming performance, lack of variety & power fantasy, some useless special attacks and overall, just not enough weapons. So, the update brings you…

[h3]13 NEW WEAPONS, 7 OLD WEAPONS REWORKED [/h3]



The plan was to offer you more toys to slay the Huns and improve the general weapon experience.

Regarding the weapon performance, we adjusted the stats and tweaked some minor mechanics. We haven't neglected legacy weapons, which have all been reworked to be on par with the new ones.

What about the Build and synergy effect? One thing we can say is we’ve laid the groundwork weapon-wise in this update, but you probably won’t notice until the Medallion Rework of the next update.

Ok, enough high-level explanation, let’s take a closer look at what we have in this update!

[h3]YOU CAN FINALLY CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON AT THE BEGINNING OF A RUN![/h3]
It's crazy we didn't make it happen earlier, but better late than never...
Now, you will find a weapon rack at the start of Hun's Camp and Zagros Village, you have to select your initial loadout from the items on the rack or break through biomes with your bare hands.


[h3]The Mechanics Adjustments:[/h3]
  • Triggering the special attack: for some weapons, you now only need to long-press the attack button, then special attack will perform automatically when it’s ready. This slight tweak makes combat smoother and the control more intuitive. Try it and tell us if it works!
  • Special attack with charge damage: in this case, you still have to long-press and release the button to perform it, because how long you press the button will decide how much damage you can charge and cause to the enemy.
    Heavy Axe here as an example: press longer, charge more, damage more!

  • Critical Damage: finally, you can cause crit when you achieve some conditions in combat. It should encourage you to play with those toys and enjoy the beauty of rhythm in combat.


[h3]New Weapons - Devs' Choice[/h3]
Listing 20 weapons could be dull, and would also spoil the fun, so we asked some Evil minions to pick out their favorites :

  • The champion is undoubtedly the Cestus, 7 people voted for it. Because, as the sound they made, it’s ORA ORA and MUDA MUDA. Also, this weapon reminds our video artist, the guy who made all the trailers, of every fist fight he had when he grew up in the hood.
    Special Attack: stun nearby enemies. Crit after several successive hits.


  • Monk Staff is also a hit, people like it being simple and elegant. Also, you can “kick projectiles back with it”.
    Special Attack: Repel enemies. Crit when the combo’s third strike hit on stunned enemies.

  • As the writer of this post, XYZ’s choice is Poisoned Claw, because it’s light and intuitive. And the poisoned effect goes well with some medallions.
    Special Attack: throw poisoned daggers. Crit with last strike of the combo on poisoned enemies.


[h3]Other NEW Weapons Waiting for Your Testimony:[/h3]
  • Imperial Axe: Special Attack: Break shields. Crit for several seconds after breaking a shield.
  • Corrupted Sword: Special Attack: Switch between light and heavy weapon. Crit when it’s the last hit of the combo.
  • Chained Dagger: Hit enemies to mark them, special attack deals massive damage on marked enemies. Crit on enemies that are not marked.


  • Berserker’s Axes: Special Attack: Activate fury mode, increasing attack speed, damage inflicted and damage taken. Crit after taking damage.
  • Hammer & Knife: Increase energy gained when you hit a certain amount of enemies. Special Attack: Inflicts bonus damage if energy is insufficient to use the tool. Crit after using the tool.
  • Corrupted Axe: Special Attack: Consume 40 energy, boost damage for once. Maximum 120 energy can be consumed. Crit if energy is lower than certain value.
  • Slayer: 3-hit combo. Special Attack: the later in the combo you trigger the special attack, the higher the damage. Crit after special attack .
  • Iron Mace: Special Attack: Weaken enemies, making them susceptible to critical damage.
  • Dented Pot: everything is random on this one! Just enjoy the uncertainty!


  • Corrupted Spear: Special Attack: Spawn spikes on the ground. Crit if enemy’s HP less than certain value.
    Well this one is actually adapted from old spear, but it's corrupted. And we've managed to create something completely new.


[h3]Old Weapons Rework[/h3]
  • Bagh Nakh: killing an enemy charges the special attack (3 max). Special Attack: Consume charges to increase the damage. Crit after a special attack.
  • Broadsword: Special Attack: Keep holding the button to keep spinning. Crit on shielded enemies.
  • Censer: Special Attack: Burn the censer for a few seconds. Crit with the third strike of the combo on burning enemies.
  • Double Daggers: Special Attack: Perform a lightning breakthrough wounding enemies. Crit after a dodge.
  • Javelin: Special Attack: Long press the attack button to charge, release to launch the weapon to pierce through enemies (more charge, more enemies will be pierced). Crit: the next hit of the last hit of the combo causes crit.
  • Royal Sword: Special Attack: Trigger a chain of devastating fast attacks. Crit after killing an enemy.
  • Tabar: Special Attack: Long press the attack button to charge, release to cause damage (more charge, higher damage). Crit after a special attack.


[h3]Falcata Removed[/h3]
As all the new stuff comes, we decided to remove Falcata (R.I.P), because the devs think it's too similar to other weapons. But the good thing is, they are considering to apply its "damage stack" effect into the design of Trinkets.

[h3]Lower Weapon Drop Rate[/h3]
  • You cannot get weapons from chests anymore (the chests in challenging rooms are the other case).
  • But we added 1 extra Weapon Altar in each biome.


[h3]Rework on how you can spend your glimmers:[/h3]
  • Instead of directly unlocking an item, you can now be a rational investor and allocate your glimmers for different items, skills or currency exchange as you wish.
  • But we suggest investing all your glimmers all the time, because glimmers not used in the Oasis will now be lost upon starting a run.


[h3]Gameplay[/h3]
  • Rework on the Resin effect: it will now only lower movement speed, and will prevent ranged mobs from using their dash (everyone hates that pink rolling beast, I know...)
  • Vayu's Blast (speed boost) rebalancing: the duration has been increased to 6.6s, but the actions to fill the gauge have been slightly changed.
  • Increased max durability for weapons with "Awakening of Transience" equipped.


[h3]UI / Menu[/h3]
  • Rework on HUD art to make it less cartoony and more like an action game.
  • Vayu's Blast (speed boost) gauge added.
  • Added gauges to meta progression unlocks in Oasis.
  • Energy cost is now visible on tools' tooltip


[h3]Skill Tree[/h3]
  • New perk added in the Mithra skill tree: Mithra's Light
  • Changed 6th skill tree's name from Behram to Verethragna


Before we get into the long list of bug fixes, there is a known issue in this build that the team is working on it, a hot fix can be expected tomorrow to fix this bug:
Potion counter and energy bar values will sometimes stop displaying.
The temporary workaround is to switch between full screen and windowed mode (press ALT+Enter twice).

[h3]Bugfix:[/h3]
Awakening
  • Fixed an issue with "Awakening of the unexpected" that caused the Hatchets to still spawn
  • Fixed fountain's map icon still appearing with "Awakening of the insurmountable/Inevitable" equipped
Skill tree
  • Fixed a typo with the Vayu's Protection perk
  • Fixed "Corrosive Resin" perk not dealing damage to protective auras
  • Corrected "Anahita's Barsom" perk description
  • Fixed "Vayu the Gilded" perk triggering on summons
  • Fixed "Divine Flame" perk not applying the bonus damage
  • Fixed an issue with "Berude's Gauntlet" that could alter the Prince's jump speed
  • Fixed "Prayer to Anahita" perk not triggering when hit by projectiles in close range
Visuals
  • Fixed gold bags clipping with floor
  • Corrected a text issue with Astara's tooltip
  • Fixed black boxes spawning in Temple
  • Fixed lingering VFX when The Prince was hit by Berude's shockwaves
  • Fixed some unintended water leaks in Aqueduct
  • Fixed pause menu still displaying some visual effects
Gameplay
  • Fixed an issue with resin that caused VFXs to be delayed
  • Fixed an issue with the biome progression bar in the loading screen displaying the wrong stage upon resuming a save
  • Fixed weapons buffer during combos
  • Fixed ledge grab ignoring doors


So voila! That’s everything we have in this update. It’s just the first shot in our roadmap for the next couple months before the end of 2024, medallion rework, more biomes & boss, art overhaul and more content is coming soon!


Cheers,
XYZ, Berenger & EE

Our Roadmap for 2024

Hello everyone,

As promised last week, here's a roadmap for the next few months – please don’t take this as set in stone, this is game development and stuff often changes including content and timings!





So let’s go a bit more in depth into what’s coming up in the rest of 2024…


[h3]Weapons update[/h3]
Right now there is quite a limited weapon pool, and the weapons themselves don’t encourage many different playstyles.

This will change with a sizeable expansion of the weapon pool, I mean we’re talking triple the amount of weapons in-game. This includes a rework of how the existing weapons work too, so don’t get too comfortable.

If only I could find a way to un-blur this image to show you the roster... mwahaha

Different weapons will encourage different playstyles like rushing enemies, crowd control or getting timings right. This should put more decision-making and strategy in your hands, especially when combined with what our later updates will bring.

If you want a hint for one of the new weapons, the devs like to call it the 'dagociraptor'...


Speed boost

There’ll also be some adjustments to the speed boost – we’re adding a gauge to show its progress, more visual feedback on what is actually triggering the boost, it will be more difficult to trigger (and easier to lose) and the visual effects will be calmed a lot.

So it should end up being more rewarding to trigger and have more urgency to it once it’s triggered, and won’t assault your eyes half as much :D


[h3]Medallion, ‘Rescue’ feature and Bestiary update[/h3]
Let’s talk about medallions first. These are what should allow you to create your ‘build’ – a key part of pretty much every roguelite.

Right now the whole system is too complicated/obscure, so people don’t see where to create synergies, and many medallions are too niche so their triggers/synergies are rarely seen even if you know what you’re doing.

This has two effects – people don’t realise that there’s this whole other layer to the game so they think the game is too simple, which is rarely a good thing, and they also don’t know how to reach higher levels of damage that you can get from good builds and so they get stuck at lower difficulties.

No surprise then that this will have a pretty extensive rework – we’re keeping the medallion system but it will be chopped and changed quite a bit to make it much more intuitive and to allow you to have more agency when crafting your builds. Of course we won’t give you all the tools to make the exact build you want each run, you’ve gotta have some RNG and trade-offs in there somewhere to keep it interesting!!

So yeah, the name of the game here is to add more variety and choice to your runs, more replayability and to improve comprehension of the game for new players.


Rescue

The ‘Rescue’ feature will test your platforming skills while adding some variety to your run and giving you the opportunity to win big rewards... We won’t say more than this but it’s going to be fun 😉

Here's a small clue, beautifully hand-drawn by our game director :P


Bestiary

The Bestiary will do exactly what it says on the tin – you’ll be able to see all the different enemies’ information, but there’ll also be challenges to complete for each enemy type to win rewards, and maybe some other things too!


[h3]Mother of all updates[/h3]
The big one. The bee’s knees. The best thing since sliced bread. The dog’s bollo-

This hefty chunk of content will bring you biomes (yes, multiple), bosses (yes, still not a typo, multiple), a new story act, complete dialogue refresh, new enemies, an overhaul of ALL the art design, a polish of the skill tree system and some other bits and bobs.

As this is quite far away, we can’t really say much more about it except that it’s going to rock your socks off.


[h3]Update timings[/h3]
You’ve probably noticed in the roadmap that the updates have moved to every month, not every 2-3 weeks.

First off, this is a rough roadmap so the timings might change anyway.

Secondly, it is likely that we’ll be dropping minor updates in between the big ones to add bits of polish and other things, so we’ll still be present.

Thirdly, considering the size of each update, the timings are actually still quite quick ^^’

Lastly, the big November update needs a lot of developer time and testing considering all of its content, and on top of that it’s being developed in parallel with the other updates by our small team.

So yeah, our producer has a constant headache called ‘Rogue Prince of Persia production planning’.


OK, just one weapon tease


Voila. That’s what’s in store for the rest of the year and we’ll probably find something to add in December too. Lots of chopping, changing and reworking, but this is Early Access and this is exactly why we wanted to do it – to hear from you about what works, what doesn’t and then changing, removing or adding things to make the game better.


We can’t wait to show you what we’re cooking up and we’re very confident that everything which is coming in the rest of 2024 will put the game in a really solid position to build on with you after the end-of-year break!


Thanks for playing,
Matt & the EE team

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