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Prince of Persia

video game franchise

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ157387 ↗
Source-derived summary

Prince of Persia is a video game franchise created by Jordan Mechner. It is centered around a series of action-adventure games focused on various incarnations of the eponymous Prince, set in ancient and medieval Persia.

The first two games in the series, Prince of Persia (1989) and Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame (1993), were published by Broderbund. Prince of Persia 3D (1999), named for being the first installment to use 3D computer graphics, was developed by Red Orb Entertainment and published by The Learning Company on PC; the Dreamcast version was developed by Avalanche Software and published by Mattel Interactive. Ubisoft bought the rights to the franchise in 2001 and rebooted it with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003). Ubisoft has since developed and published five additional entries in the series: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (2004), Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (2005), Prince of Persia (2008), Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (2010), and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (2024), as well as a number of spin-offs and games for mobile devices (by Gameloft). A remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was announced in 2020, but it was cancelled at the beginning of 2026.

Outside of the games, the franchise includes a film adaptation, a graphic novel and the Lego Prince of Persia toyline. Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed franchise is considered to be the spiritual successor to the series.

Games

Original trilogy

The first game in the series was created by Jordan Mechner after the success of Karateka.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Prince of Persia” as video game franchise. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Prince, Persia and video.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1989, 1993, 1999, 2001—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Prince, Persia and video providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Prince of Persia”, the useful work is to connect “video game franchise” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q157387. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1989, 1993, 1999 and 2001.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Prince of Persia”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Prince of Persia primary sources, Prince of Persia archive and Prince research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Prince of Persia”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Prince of Persia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.