Playing Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown on iPhone 16 is Wonderful but Flawed

This month, Ubisoft launched Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown on iOS and Android. Porting over the award-winning metroidvania game, I was eager to test it out and see how one of my favourite games from 2024 would fare on iPhone 16. I really set out to see how Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown handled on a portable smartphone, comparing it to the console experience after putting in over 40 hours the year prior.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was released in early 2024 on January 18th. The game was developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and originally launched for PlayStation 4/5, PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. It wasn’t until late 2024 that the game came to macOS, and finally, on April 14, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown arrived on iOS and Android. I was enamoured by the game’s artistic design and gameplay loop. Prince of Persia has deep roots in the 2D side-scrolling genre. Before transitioning to a more traditional 3D action space, the series was quite simplistic in design. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an homage to those early days of the franchise.

Bringing Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown to iOS, Ubisoft is leveraging a lot of the power offered by the iPhone 16. Since first introducing the A17 Pro processor in the iPhone 15, Apple has been touting a focus on supporting game developers on iPhone. With the inclusion of the A18 in the iPhone 16, it was the latest opportunity to see what the chipset brought to the table in terms of raw power and performance. The results, unfortunately, are a bit mixed. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown looks visually stunning, retaining the bright colour spectrum and animation. It all beams off the Super Retina XDR display. Depending on whether you’re using tactile touch controls or a third-party controller accessory, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown handles very competently as well. Where I think the game struggles is in its performance. During gameplay and cutscenes, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown incorporates a lot of onscreen action and effects. Throughout my time with the game, I experienced routine slowdown and dropped frames anytime the game had too much happening on screen. Sadly, this is all too common because Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown doubles down on having a wonderful art style, inspired by the traditional conventions of the series, married with visuals almost taken from anime.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a standalone experience. Centred on playing as Sargon, players will investigate the cursed city of Mount Qaf to rescue the kidnapped Prince Ghassan alongside the clan known as The Immortals. In a bid to rescue Prince Ghassan, players must venture through every corner of Mount Qaf, complete puzzles, take on enemies, and upgrade Sargon along the way, gaining access to new powers and traversal mechanics. What Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown accomplishes is putting so many elements together and making them all work. The level design of the game is immaculate. Throughout the roughly 20-hour experience, you’re taken through several biomes and environments, scaling walls and climbing to new heights. The metroidvania aspects of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown persist from the opening hours through to the end. As I unlocked new abilities, I was able to return to previous parts of the map and explore the deeper caverns and paths. It’s a rewarding system that’s in place, inspiring curiosity and puzzle-solving. Everything on the iPhone 16 looks crisp and rich with its support of high contrast and brightness. The iPhone 16 was able to retain a lot of the visual identity of the game, something that I strongly feel is one of the greatest aspects of the game.

The combat of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is easily one of the strong suits of the game. It was easily what I looked forward to testing the most, seeing how it translated to a touchscreen. As the dual-sword-wielding Sargon, you’ll slash your way through enemies and boss fights, parrying attacks and diving to evade. On a traditional controller, it works incredibly well. Pulling off a chain attack, using Sargon’s bow, and leveraging traversal to take on enemies can be incredibly satisfying. While Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown can be played entirely using the touchscreen controls, I do feel as though I was at a slight disadvantage. Sure, the 6.1-inch display of the iPhone 16 is large enough to render all the beautiful details of the game. However, with intricate combat and traversal control inputs, I felt as though I was better off using the Razer Kishi Ultra. With Razer’s USB-C mobile controller, I found it was much easier to pull off elaborate traversal combos or make quick work of Jahandar, one of the game’s tougher bosses.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown runs on Apple’s A18 chipset while playing on iPhone 16. The homebrewed processor was supposedly designed to enable AAA games to run on the flagship device. While Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is visually impressive and mechanically cutting edge, its scope isn’t that large. I was let down by the continuous frame issues while fighting enemies, as partial and visual effects took up the screen. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown throws a lot at you during its cinematics as well. Unfortunately, the beauty and fluidity of these scenes are interrupted by these performance issues. Thankfully, none of the issues I experienced made Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown unplayable. The good in the game is still very good. However, it could have been made even better with improved performance.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is now available on iOS and Android.. Despite it not being a perfect port, it’s hard to argue that the game isn’t a delight to play while on the go. As far as the core gameplay, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is one of the best metroidvanias in recent memory. It’s also one of my favourite games of 2024 and continues to be one of my favourites to this day. While I wholeheartedly recommend the use of a third-party controller or accessory for more intuitive controls, if you’re looking for your next game to play on iPhone 16, I would recommend Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown as long as you can look beyond the blemishes.