Open letter to Ubisoft India on PoP Remake art direction

I am a big fan of the original Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It made a huge impact in me back in 2003, due to its innovative premise, polished gameplay and entrancing atmosphere. So, as the original game started to age and some successful remakes started to breathe new life into old games, many people in my generation were expecting a loving revisitation of the original to re-live those moments without the inconveniences of many old games.

This is why the announcement of the Remake of The Sands of Time felt to me and to many, both great news and a terrible missed opportunity. I'm not adding anything new if I say a big portion of the fans have shown bitter disappointment with the presentation, and I know the great public is often cruel (specially behind anonimity) or doesn't know too well how to communicate or point their finger on what's what they don't like of what they see (I've often read that it looks like a PS3 game, which I find a very off-the-mark appreciation), so it's hard when crisis ensues in the studio to separate wheat from chaff and take the right measures, if any. Corporate says that the budget wasn't an issue and it's a big team of people putting their souls into it, and I have no reasons to think otherwise.

That's why I thought my convergent experience as both a fan and art director, to the degree it might matter (which it may not, but I'll still feel relieved by having put it into text), could help a bit with easing the blow and make something more constructive out of it. I understand suddenly starting over art production is out of the equation, particularly when it'd come to reworking 3D models, but there's still a chance of making a big visual impact within a reasonably low time and budget. To me, 60-70% of what doesn't work in the trailer's visuals comes down to something very simple: LIGHTING AND ATMOSPHERE.

The project director at Ubisoft India said something about it not being Assassin's Creed or POP 2008, but its own "unique style" (empty buzzword). Nobody expects it to be AC or POP2008, but neither something unique. As a remake, its goal is to pay homage to a classic. Revisit something engraved in people's memories with a respectful vision that doesn't suffer from the limitations of the original. To be bluntly honest, little on the trailer conveys the haunting "1001 Nights" atmosphere and beauty of the original, and it mostly comes down to a quite strident use of light, underused fog, loud colors and ramped up saturation and contrast. So my advice follows logically: reduce the amount of information on screen, simplify the readability of compositions using light, make color palettes more unified (this doesn't mean monochromatic, by the way), create depth with fog and scattered light, ease the flat blotches of black shadow ubiquitous in the material shown. Hire an amazing concept artist (or use some of the ones you probably already have) who excels at color and mood, have them paint over your own screenshots, and put all your eggs into one basket: rework lighting, fog and to a lesser degree, atmospheric FX almost from the ground up.

You likely WON'T make it to your January deadline, but the delay won't be that dramatic, and you'll likely get a beautiful-looking mood that feels timeless enough for people to stop complaining about the game looking already "aged", all within a reasonable budget. I don't know your production reality, but hope you have some leeway with that. This is likely the biggest bang for the buck you can get. It doesn't have to be the end of the world and it's perfectly fixable to a degree. Wish you the best, since I also want to play it. Give us the amazing remake such a game deserves.

Best,

Abel Oroz