Released in January 2024, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown managed to impress both the press and the gamers who tried it, thanks to its proposal to revive the saga in the form of a Metroidvania. With its generous content and smooth gameplay, the game was one of the best of early 2024, before we learned that the team in charge in Montpellier had been disbanded, due to unfulfilled objectives for Ubisoft’s finances, dashing our hopes of seeing a sequel flourish one day.
Last September, the studio announced the launch of Mask of Darkness, the game’s one and only narrative DLC, on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and Nintendo Switch, with far more demanding content than the original title. Here are our impressions (a little late) of this expansion, which definitely doesn’t have the same flavor today as it did back then.
Table of Contents
Naive Sargon
To start this expansion and enter Rajden’s lair, you must have made some progress in the main story. Rest assured, you don’t need to finish the full game to take part in the DLC, since in any case – and this is one of the key aspects of this expansion – Sargon will be stripped of almost all the powers he has acquired since the start of the adventure, along with his entire health bar, which has been greatly increased, leaving him with just three small segments at the start. As you can tell from these few lines, the Mask of Darkness DLC gives you a pretty rough start, and believe us, that’s just the beginning.
After having been teleported into the lair of Rajden, an ancient cursed warrior who has been trapped by the Simurgh feather, you find yourself facing new enemies, new traps, and new bosses, all of which could be described as more devious, given that you’re off to a much weaker start if you’ve made any progress in the main adventure before beginning this expansion.
Even so, it’s worth mentioning that this narrative DLC focuses more on platforming than the more recurring confrontations in the base game. Indeed, you’ll encounter some tough platform phases in this DLC, more so than in the base game in our opinion, reinforcing its die & retry nature once again, with an almost mandatory requirement to complete the phases in one try and without the slightest hitch, just like the bosses, few in number but requiring you to interact with them and observe their patterns carefully as your life will melt away like snow in the sun.
Extremely Challenging and Exciting Content
In the platforming phases, impassive lasers, invisible saws, ephemeral platforms, and other thrusters activated by hits – everything is there to renew a large part of what you’ve experienced so far at the very heart of platforming gameplay, and we’re not disappointed! We’d even have liked to see some of these great ideas integrated into the base game, because they add real value.
These include the pointed poles, which allow you to hold on to them when they’re bare, and progress from pole to pole thanks to your eternal Dash and the shadow of Simurgh, which allows you to place a ghost. Handy for suicidal runs through deadly rooms, where you have to shoot at targets to activate new thrusters. On the other hand, we weren’t convinced by the chase phases with a gigantic eye, which we didn’t think were up to scratch.
On the other hand, the progression is more linear than in the original game, which proudly displayed its Metroidvania feel. Here we find a much more classic progression, with little backtracking to use newly acquired skills, and three distinct paths to a final objective. The Mask of Darkness DLC is a little disappointing here, as the structure that made the game famous earlier this year is missing here.
However, we must admit that the game’s expansive play area is no match for some of the base game’s zones, and at a minimal price of $4.99, it promises between 3 and 6 hours of gameplay if you intend to search and find everything, which is a decent lifespan. Even more so when you consider that the final boss will have you sweating so hard that you’ll have to use everything you’ve learned up to that point to perfection, leaving no room for error.
Conclusion
Prince of Persia The Lost Crown: Mask of Darkness is a satisfying expansion to one of the best titles of the beginning of the year, adding a few hours to the already comprehensive base game, which ultimately stands on its own. The story unfolds simultaneously with the base game, and it’s hard to get more involved, as the impact on our main adventure is almost non-existent. It’s hard to call it a major DLC, given the rather weak content on offer, but it’s certainly a good side adventure available for a small price, which still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth after the team’s recent disbanding, definitively burying the idea of a worthy sequel.