Prince of Persia 2: Warrior Within

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (also known as Prince of Persia 2: Warrior Within) is an action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft in late 2004 on PC and contemporary console platforms. Built on top of the engine that has powered the critically acclaimed and highly commercially successful Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time from 2003, this new adventure of the Prince managed to add many new features which include the improved presentation style, more streamlined and dynamic combat, ability to wield two weapons at a time, a versatile combo system, finishing moves, and much more. Of course, the popular time-rewind system that was popularized in Sands of Time returns again in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, this time allowing the Prince to use the powerful Sand powers that can knock all enemies around him.

Set seven years after the events of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, this game gives the player the chance to experience a large 20-hour cinematic campaign that skillfully mixes 3D platforming, exploration, and combat sequences. In stark difference to the original game, the world that can be explored in this game is non-linear and promotes user exploration and backtracking to previously visited zones where new content and secrets can be found (often in different time periods that are unlocked by Prince’s powers). The movement of the Prince was enhanced with new parkour and freerunning-styled moves and greatly enhanced combat options. To successfully find every secret present in the game, the players are required to not only finish the game once but to also replay the game and enter the final confrontation wielding a different main weapon (with or without the powerful Water Sword). The secret ending of the game represents a canonical ending, that is directly leading to the events that are described in the third Prince of Persia game (The Two Thrones) that was released in late 2005.

Today, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within represents one of the key titles in the PoP franchise and is often replayed by the fans of older Ubisoft titles. On modern PCs, this title simply flies, enabling players to max out their monitor resolution and experience high framerates. The game can even be enjoyed on very old PC configurations (thanks to the system requirement of just single-core 1GHz processor!), which even includes many laptops that don’t have dedicated GPU chip. However, be aware that since the game was natively optimized to run only on Windows XP and Windows 2000, play on modern OS versions may lead to unexpected bugs and compatibility errors.