Prince of Persia 3D

Prince of Persia 3D was an attempt to move the series from flat 2D screens into fully three-dimensional space in the late 1990s, when 3D accelerators had become a standard fixture on PCs. Development was handled by Sandstorm Productions, and the game was published by Red Orb Entertainment, a publishing label tied to Broderbund. The prince once again sets out to rescue a kidnapped princess, this time in an underground city full of temples, sewers, and mechanical traps, and the game tries to preserve the series' typical acrobatic jumping, ledge-climbing, and sword combat, only carried over to a camera positioned behind the character instead of the fixed side view of previous installments.

The result was ambitious for its time, but technically shaky. Controlling movement in three-dimensional space made judging jump distances much harder than in the previous 2D installments, the camera often got stuck in narrow corridors around corners, and the frame rate fluctuated even on then-powerful Windows 95 or 98 rigs, so the game needed patches after release. The level design stayed true to the principle of precise timing and dangerous pitfalls, but instead of the elegance of rotoscoped animation it offered blockier polygonal models and texturing typical of the first wave of 3D platformers. New weapons and magic items were also added that the prince could carry between levels, and puzzles additionally often required precise depth judgment in 3D space, which was a complete novelty compared to the purely acrobatic predecessors and also the biggest source of frustration. The game thus today serves more as evidence of how difficult and bumpy the genre's transition to full 3D was than as a fully-fledged, well-aging successor to the previous installments.

Why play it: More interesting for fans of the series and of game design history who want to see Prince of Persia's shaky transition to the 3D era firsthand, than for players looking for smooth, well-aging acrobatics.