The Rogue Prince of Persia (Nintendo Switch 2) Review

Evil Empire and Ubisoft’s 2D side-scrolling roguelike, The Rogue Prince of Persia, has gone physical nearly one year after its digital release. By now, it’s on every platform you can think of, except maybe the Amazon Alexa. Jokes aside, its physical release is timed with a reminder that Evil Empire isn’t done with The Rogue Prince of Persia, yet. There are two major content updates coming in the first half 2026, the first is this month along with an “Endgame” update coming in May.

This now begs the question: If you haven’t yet tried The Rogue Prince of Persia, should you start? Should you get the physical edition, as well?

My answer to both of those questions is…probably. I get that there’s no time like the present, and I get that Evil Empire has made some meaningful changes and big promises for the first half of this year, but…I’m unsure if The Rogue Prince of Persia’s physical release is timed right for roguelike fans to best appreciate it. Longtime Prince of Persia fans, though, should jump at the chance for the steelbook in the Immortal Edition. It looks flat out awesome.

Let’s take a step back and focus on the first question and its intricacies.

The Rogue Prince of Persia is a roguelike platformer in an already overcrowded space of roguelikes of every flavor. It attempts to set itself apart from the pack by using a notable IP (underrated, by today’s standards), a hand-drawn-esque art style, and some incredible traversal in massive spaces that could probably be better utilized. If you’re a fan of Prince of Persia, this roguelike is a fresh take on the series and satisfying to play. Just don’t go into it expecting the depth and charm of Hades or Dead Cells.

There are some similarities, though. The Rogue Prince of Persia begins as a massive sandbox to run and swing around, giving the player a solid idea of how traversal works as an offensive weapon and defensive mechanism. On that front, it absolutely nails the flow of traversal and platforming. Running can turn into scaling a vertical wall. An air dash can be followed up with running along a wall in the background. Yes – one can run on the background walls if a wall is present. It is so cool. Despite The Prince’s (yes, he’s unnamed in this game) fluidity, movement feels natural. Jumping from a crumbling bridge to a ledge is a precise affair; there’s no artificial slipperiness that’s introduced for the sake of realism or difficulty gimmicks. Because of this, the traversal’s predictability allows the player to focus their entire attention on using the massive levels to their advantage.

This translates exceptionally well within combat, as well. Enemies have moderately telegraphed windows where The Prince can jump over or dash away from danger. After a successful dodge, The Prince can quickly follow up with attacks of his own using one of many, many weapons.

Early on in my review period, I noticed some similarities between this game and 2023’s Have a Nice Death – another 2D-side scrolling roguelike that I reviewed. Both games adopt the approach of randomizing weapons, tools, and medallions (boons) that grant the player a new set of skills on each new run. Tools have limited uses before needing to be recharged over a short amount of time while medallions grant the Prince some temporary stats (like life steal, bonus weapon damage, damage reduction, and so forth). The weapons themselves feel distinct to use, but the overall pool of weapons would benefit from additional modifiers to add some much-needed variety beyond the notion of an upgraded weapon dealing slightly more damage.

Some metroidvania elements come into play at the start of the second run, drawing some similarities to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. New NPCs become introduced at a slow pace, briefly (and silently) interacting with the Prince before he’s off to save his family.

By the seventh-or-so run, I had a nagging feeling that things began to feel repetitious. The wide spaces I had been running through began to blend together, only differentiating themselves by color and the occasional additional trap or two. I began to figure out which weapons worked best with my playstyle. I had solved the meta (so to speak) in short order. I kept hoping to find something more that made runs feel less punishing. Aside from the occasional cutscene and side quest ala The Prince’s Mind Map, there was a missed opportunity to breathe life into the game’s massive world.

I won’t go so far as to say that the biomes contain too much empty space like 2025’s Possessor(s). I will say that there’s enough variety that shifts from traditional horizonal left-to-right exploration to massive verticality similar to Sonic the Hedgehog’s level design. What’s missing here is the essence and novelty of each biome. In Hades 2, for instance, each biome had thematically appropriate traps and differences that made them feel distinct. I didn’t get that here.

In terms of art style, however, The Rogue Prince of Persia is stunning. It’s clearly winning on a unique ligne claire art style that few other games have yet to adopt.

Evil Empire has promised more endgame content later this year. It’s very much needed for those, like me, who successfully reached the end credits by the 10-hour mark. For comparison’s sake, I’ve spent around 30 hours in Star of Providence and just under 50 hours in Hades 2 and am still unlocking content in both of these games. Beyond the fluid and satisfying traversal of The Rogue Prince of Persia, I didn’t feel like there was much to do after finishing the game.

For some folks, that’s probably an acceptable place to stop playing a game. Not all games must be infinitely replayable for 20+ hours on end. But…for a game whose core gameplay loop aligns with the idea of replayable variance, The Rogue Prince of Persia deserves a deeper endgame for those who chase uber-difficult and novel experiences.

I want to be clear here: The Rogue Prince of Persia won me over on its traversal and combat. I loved pushing the game’s engine to its limits by exploring the massive levels and fluidly taking down enemies like I was an agile assassin. What I didn’t find too satisfying was the lack of variance after the seventh hour. I’m legitimately curious and optimistic to see what’s added in these next two updates from the devs.

On the Nintendo Switch 2, loading times between levels were egregious. Moving from the Oasis (the hub where the Prince revisited between runs) to the first level would take anywhere from 20-30s, while the end-game screen would freeze and take a good 45 seconds to return me to the Oasis where I could start anew. It’s strange for the game to take this long to load, as the game isn’t graphically intensive nor a burden on the Nintendo Switch 2’s hardware. I’m not 100% sure if it’s because the game kept saving and uploading the game state to Ubisoft Connect or if it was a matter of subpar optimization. Either way, it feels like a subpar experience compared to other platforms.

Returning to the original question: Should you play in 2026? I remain convinced that probably is the best answer, only because of the content that is on the way that should add some much needed variance and end-game content to complement the existing excellent skeleton that is The Rogue Prince of Persia’s mechanics.

The Rogue Prince of Persia’s fluid traversal, gorgeous art style, and satisfying combat make it a promising roguelike platformer. What it lacks in endgame content and variety it makes up for in a game that has now set the gold standard for what traversal should be for all platformers going forward. With its physical release and imminent free content updates, now might be the best time to try Evil Empire’s take on a Prince of Persia title.