Ubisoft reiterated that the remake of "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" (opens in new tab) has not been canceled. Ubisoft reiterated that the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (opens in new tab) has not been cancelled.

Ironically, it is understandable that people would question the status of the remake of "Sands of Time," a game that took a long time to complete. While Ubisoft did not cite the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason for the game's delay, the pandemic is an understandable cause of disruption in the gaming industry, with 44 percent of developers (open in new tab) blaming the pandemic for the 2021 delay.

In the case of Ubisoft, The Sands of Time was announced in 2020 (open in new tab) with a 2021 release date, but has since been delayed numerous times, after the remake was advertised as the first project led by Ubisoft's studio in India, 2022, the game was transferred to Ubisoft Montreal (opens in new tab). The most recent June postponement took the game out of Ubisoft's 2023 fiscal year, leaving it with no release target (opens in new tab).

The FAQ states that this is still the current status and that "no new release date has been set." It also states that there are currently no plans to remake the other games in the Prince of Persia series, which debuted as a rotoscoped platformer in 1989. This is understandable, considering that Ubisoft is not planning to release this game.

Interestingly, one thing has changed: In the June postponement announcement, Ubisoft stated that fans who pre-ordered the game could contact retailers to cancel if they did not want to wait for the game, but in this new FAQ, The Sands of Time remake does not currently have a release date, the company said existing pre-orders will be automatically cancelled and refunded. Ubisoft added that pre-orders may resume once a new release date for the game is announced.

Ubisoft is not the only publisher to automatically refund pre-orders due to delays; in March they delayed the RTS for "The Settlers" (open in new tab), in July for "Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora" (open in new tab) In September, they put the brakes on "Skull and Bones" (open in new tab) even though it was less than two months away from release, and "Beyond Good and Evil 2" (open in new tab) recently surpassed "Duke Nukem Forever's" all-time video game vaporware record.