Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner spills details on the series’ two lost games

29.03.2024 - 11:17 / digitaltrends.com / Giovanni Colantonio

Jordan Mechner can’t stop looking backward — and that’s not entirely by choice.

The Prince of Persia creator has found himself at the center of an accidental renaissance in the past year thanks to three separate projects lining up at once, some of which he had no hand in. First came Digital Eclipse’s The Making of Karateka, a playable documentary about Mechner’s first hit Apple II game that paved the way for Prince of Persia. That project was followed by Ubisoft’sPrince of Persia: The Lost Crown this January, a new installment to the series that pays homage to Mechner’s original 2D games. That past-facing stretch now caps off with Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family, a new graphic novel by Mechner that looks back on both his career and family history.

Through that stretch, the 59-year-old Mechner has had a lot of time to reflect not just on his highs but his lows. The road to each one of his crowning achievements was paved with canceled projects that never saw the light of day. When I sat down with Mechner at this year’s Game Developers Conference to unpack this reflective moment of his long career, there wasn’t a hint of resentment in his voice as he revealed details on his two canceled Prince of Persia games. Instead, he sees both his successes and failures as being of equal importance. The former couldn’t exist without the latter, even if he didn’t always know that in the moment.

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“We don’t always realize in the moment that we’re doing something how it’s going to be important or what value it’s going to have,” Mechner tells Digital Trends. “Often we can be surprised in a powerful way to realize how things ripple into the future.”

Deathbouce and Karateka

When I meet Mechner in person for the first time, I feel like I already know him. I’d seen the inner workings of his brain months ago when I playedThe Making of Karateka, an interactive documentary that includes several interviews with Mechner about creating his first masterpiece. The man I’d meet at GDC would match the one I saw quietly recalling details about Karateka’s creation from a piano bench alongside his father. He’s reserved and precise, carefully organizing his thoughts before answering questions.

That attitude shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s experienced The Making of Karateka. Digital Eclipse’s detailed documentary paints a picture of a young Mechner agonizing over every detail of his Apple II game. His process was painstaking, so much so that he used rotoscoping to hand-draw his pixelated characters based on