Ubisoft has confirmed that it has no plans to release a demo of its upcoming fourth instalment in the Prince of Persia franchise.
Speaking with Eurogamer, Producer Ben Mattes stated that a demo is "Not planned,” adding, "Doing demos of open-world games is a technical challenge; plus we’re not convinced we need to. It’s a brand that has some history, some built-in fan-base and we can benefit a little bit from that. Whether you like Sands of Time, Warrior Within or Two Thrones, chances are you’re going to love this game because there are elements of all of those in it."
Mattes observed that many game demos are of poor quality, and as a result do more harm than good to the game’s overall success.
"There’s just so many awful demos,” he said. "Let’s face it, releasing a demo when you also have an E3 version to put together, and you’re beta etc… It’s not the kind of thing that’ s going to allow you to put together a really polished demo.”
"There’s a reality of production we have to live with which means if we did put together a demo there’s a potential that it wouldn’t be at the level we want it to be. Then what are you doing? You’re doing your game a disservice by putting it in players’ hands before it’s ready. Nobody wants that."
Prince of Persia is due out on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 later this year.