Prince of Persia has a Hidden Message

As part of today's 1UP interview with Prince of Persia team members Ben Mattes (producer) and Michael McIntyre (level designer), Mattes discussed the idea of having hidden messages in games and revealed that for Prince of Persia the team at Ubisoft Montreal came up with a written statement to guide them during development -- one they intend to keep secret upon the game's release. 

"I think one of the things we really want people to take away from this game is that there's more to it than meets the eye," said Mattes. "There's a surface layer, which is: Fight the bad guys, heal the world, collect the Light Seeds, kill Ahriman, you win. But there's a lot of imbued meaning in all of that that we went spent weeks and months discussing. What does the Corruption represent to us? And what does healing the world represent to us? And what does Elika represent in terms of the guardian of light? And who is the Prince in terms of this noble savage who wanders in and helps her out? And what does it mean that he eventually helps her?"

Citing references like The Simpsons for their approach, Mattes' team made a point to design the game so these kinds of questions would not weigh down players not wanting to answer them. "We were really conscious of not hitting the player over the head with a sledgehammer about that kind of stuff, because maybe they'll get it, maybe they won't," he said.

"I think what's kind of neat is that you don't have to care about that, and you don't have to get that, and you can still have lots of fun," he continued. "But if you do get it, maybe, just maybe, you'll ask yourself a question about your own life after having played this game and feel like you've learned something. Maybe. And if you have, I think we can pat ourselves on the back as developers by saying we've allowed people to grow just a little bit -- just a little bit -- as humans solely through entertaining them. Not many mediums can do that."

Mattes said the team doesn't want to reveal what his team has written down in order to not send players out looking for anything specific but encouraged players to come up with their own theories about what the developers are trying to say with the game.

Notably, one of the games that has been most open about its intended message recently has also come from Ubisoft Montreal: Far Cry 2. So there might be a fun connection to make between the two, if you ignore Ubisoft Montreal's 10+ other games that tend to be in development at any given time.