As
a reboot and re-imagining of Jordan Mechner's original Prince of Persia
series, The Sands of Time had received critical claim due to its numerous
platforming innovations, pioneering many mechanics for later platforming titles
to date and even producing a film of the same name despite initial fairly lacklustre
sales.
Right
from the beginning the game had always contextualized the architectural style
of ancient Persia even with the original Prince of Persia title (Brøderbund,
1989), as its cinematics depict the more opulent aspect of Iranian architecture,
as opposed to the more muted representations of Achaemenid architecture
perpetuated by recent popular media in the West.
In the Sands of
Time demo, very early on in the game we can see that there are clear
inspirations from Achaemenid style (Persepolis) architecture, and while it does
contrast from the aforementioned more opulent aesthetics that inspired the
original Prince of Persia, players can still make out the Persian inspired
architecture due to other universal imagery such as the game’s use of the Iranian date
palms and Islamic domes on the buildings established at the very beginning of
the game.
Fig 1 & 2. A comparison between the very opulent architecture found in the original Prince of Persia game and a Persian hallway.
Fig 3. The establishing shot of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
Another thing
to note however is that almost straight away players will also note inspiration
from other middle-eastern cultures such as Indian (due to the murals and
paintings found inside the Maharajah’s Treasure Vaults). For the nitpicky this
is perhaps a warning flag considering that Indo-Persian influence happened much
later in history (Sands of Time was said to take place during 9th
century AD whereas cross-cultural Indo-Persian interaction did not come to a
head until the peak of the Delhi Sultanate during the 13th century).
Shortly after
the courtroom ambush sequence (which in itself is lavishly decorated with
Persian rugs of sorts, a Persian aesthetic staple), the player will encounter a
courtyard which is seemingly inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. At
this point, you can argue that the hodge podge of different architectural
styles is primarily strong evidence that Ubisoft had swayed towards gameplay
over accurate cultural representation by creating a cultural Frankenstein monster
of sorts.
Fig 4 & 5. The courtyard level that is most probably inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Nonetheless,
it does go to show that designing these worlds within the game as such are all
conscious aesthetic decisions as it allows both the gameplay and world design
work from one another in a back and forth manner, where gameplay mechanics are
contextualized by the theme and architecture of the game world. Even if The
Sands of Time’s Persian-inspired world is more or less an amalgamation of
numerous middle-eastern cultures (ranging from Turkish, Indian to
Mesopotamian), the sort of iconography used within the game does allow the
player to make cultural connections between the game and its intended thematic
game world.
SCREENSHOT REFERENCES:
(all Sands of Time screenshots in this blog post were taken by the author of the post)
Author Unknown. (Date Unknown). In Game. Retrieved from http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Atari_ST/Snap/big/Prince_of_Persia_-_1990_-_Br%C3%B8derbund_Software.jpg
anavia. (2012). Persian Architecture. Retrieved from http://pre11.deviantart.net/87a5/th/pre/i/2012/036/6/3/persian_architecture_by_anavian-d4osn2d.jpg
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