Here’s a new way to patch your game. Following a recent speedrunning competition for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown hosted by Ubisoft, it seems the company then used the data and methods gleamed from the competition to essentially patch out the methods the participants used.

The competition itself happened late last month, with a winner even announced by the official Prince of Persia Twitter/X account:

Initally planned for an hour, the speedrunners managed to make it to Azhadha in half the time…

Big Congrats to KeremOR9 for winning the Eternal Sands speedrun! https://t.co/W6hBK6R2V5

— Prince of Persia™: The Lost Crown (@princeofpersia) February 1, 2024

When Was the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Speedrunning Methods Patched Out?

The patch to prevent speedrunners from exploiting the game came with patch 1.0.4, which was released last week. Of course, there is no mention of any speedrunning methods patched out specifically, but it has been noted by the speedrunning community.

Over on the Speedrunner.com, here’s the message that was posted about the update patching out the methods they used to go through the game fast:

“The game patch 1.0.4 which has been released by Ubisoft on February 8th, 2024 has fixed a number of glitches and tricks which were used in, or even core to, the Any% categories. Most notably, the boss zombie glitch has been patched out but also the restricted categories are affected: e.g., the invisible wall between the two seals at the entrance to the Pit of Eternal Sands now extends all the way up so the old strat where one simply sword hovers over it does not work anymore, cf. also the patch notes.

Long story short, as a result of the patch all runs done on previous versions of the game have been archived in a misc category (direct link). For the unrestricted categories this was the only feasible options. For the restricted category things are a bit more ambiguous since, e.g., there is another trick to get into the Pit of Eternal Sands early which, however, is a lot more difficult than the previous version. Thus to ensure a fair competition we decided to archive those runs, as well.”

I don’t know about you, but this seems like an odd move to make by the devs. I mean, not a lot of people will use speedrunning methods in order to finish the game, and even if they did, isn’t it within their rights to do so? Unless the methods used broke the game, which doesn’t seem like it did.

Regardless of this snag, The Lost Crown is an excellent game. You can read our review of it here, where we state, “Taking Prince of Persia and mixing it with the Metroidvania genre was a brilliant move, as the gameplay and abilities from the series mesh very well with this style.”

Thanks, Duckable!