Prince of Persia with Andrew S Walsh

Ubisoft's narrative director plots the Prince's reinvention

Is Elika more important than the Prince in a way? Could she have been given her own sidekick?

I think that's been one of the balancing acts. I think when you play through the game you'll see that it has to be him. Both of the characters compliment each other, in their abilities and their characteristics. If it had been someone else it wouldn't have worked... they've ended up in the right place.

BioWare obviously believe you can have convincing love scenes in games. Might we see the Prince and Elika getting together?

We've a male and a female character... but we don't want to tread a path already taken. I don't want to give away too much about the story, I want people to play through, but I want to say that it shouldn't evolve in the way so many games do. We don't want a cliched ending. But... we will hopefully have trodden a different path. They're both attractive people, but we don't want them rolling around together two levels in!

Do you think games becoming a mature medium means that you can tackle romance, though, in a credible way?

I think its improved a lot. There's a general problem with emotion in film because that's all you're trying to do, where as in games you've got everything else to do. So, trying to get emotion in is very tricky. You can make people emotional about a piece of cheese, so there should be ways of doing it in games, but it is tricky. One thing we've built into the game is that we have an on-demand dialogue system. So, throughout the game, you have key points where the characters talk - and this provides something for all players - but for players who want more depth (there are different requirements), you can talk to Elika at any point during the game to find out more about what's going on, what she thinks, learn more about her and the world, etc.

It gives the story extra depth. None of the information is redundant, but you can play the game without it. If you want to just run through and look at the surface you can, but if you want more its there for you.

Would you describe the overall plot (the Tree of Life destroyed releasing corruption into the world) as mythological?

There's definitely elements of classical mythology. The rest we've invented. Its certainly not based on an original myth, we've sort of taken elements and brought them together to create a new myth, a new legend. Again, back to the Arabian Nights, the idea there was that a woman was to be executed, and she managed to persuade the king that by telling a story she would be able to finish the next night - and she would do this every night, on and on, and she created a new fantastical story and was spared. That's the kind of edge we were going for.

Did you write the game's script?

Yes, I did.

How did you approach that, trying to avoid cliche?

A lot of it comes from the early decisions taken on the project. The narrative design. So, before we wrote dialogue we knew who the characters were going to be, and it takes time for the characters to emerge. We knew the beginning, middle and end of the story. The sections, etc. Then it's about breaking it down - levels, the open-world, we have to work all that out. How can we tell the story in a way that makes it exciting; progress; but not get in the way of the gameplay. Once you've broken it all down - you can start writing a good script.

Does the story have an ending?

You go on a journey, which begins and takes you to new places, you're told a story... does this conclude? No. You've completed a book, a film, you've been on a journey. This is the end of a particular chapter. There's definitely more story to tell after this one.

What's your favourite element of the new game; the part of your narrative work your most proud of?

Wow! Well, working with the team has been great, bringing all the different elements together, seeing it come to life. Having fun with it... its been a lot of fun! There's hopefully the balance there between the humour, and the more serious side to it. So there's the emotion there, there's the humour and its important too, it helps you make a difference, but hopefully there's the depth there too.

Do you worry about the Prince's American accent - with the wise-cracks, etc?

That's definitely something to talk about in the interview! We talked about that a lot... what we should do with accents. Its a case of being damned if you do and damned if you don't. The last Prince of Persia - people on forums saying an American accent is crazy, how can you do this - the trilogy, used an English accent instead. But there was a negative and a positive response.

A middle-eastern accent might have been quite good?

Again, that was discussed. It was possible, but there are problems getting a range of middle-eastern actors... at least, that's what we found. There's been a previous game produced by Ubisoft which had a very strong middle-eastern influence, released recently, and they went through a lot of casting initiatives trying to find the right voice actors. Voice actors are a different breed. Some proper actors can't do it in a voice booth. Its a different skill... so the number of actors was very limited.

Some people are going to like it, others won't but we hope people get used to it, and that they get to know the Prince.

Thanks for your time Andrew.

Thank you!

By Luke Guttridge