Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Leverages Persian Roots and Orchestral Score

Ubisoft’s return to one of its most storied franchises is coming with a carefully engineered sound: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown leans on a collaboration that’s deliberately split between Persian traditional textures and modern orchestral game scoring. The result, as the people behind the project describe it, is music built to stay “new but familiar” while remaining tightly synced with metroidvania gameplay—so combat, exploration, and character motifs can all hit the same sense of place, even when players backtrack.

Release window and platforms

The source material does not include a release date, platform list, or edition breakdown for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. The discussion does confirm internal performance targets for Nintendo Switch.

A composer duo designed to “break borders”

Ubisoft assembled a two-artist sound team: Iranian artist Samar Rad, known as Mentrix, and composer Gareth Coker. The project also credits additional audio leads and supervisors—Raphaël Joffres (Music Supervisor) and Slimane Dellaoui (Sound Designer / Lead Audio)—for helping shape how the score would blend together.

Mentrix’s background is central to the approach. She describes discovering music later in life, after restrictions in her childhood in Iran, and then moving through Western rock and punk influences. Her contributions are presented not as a decorative layer, but as a voice-and-instrument presence alongside Persian-oriented instruments and rhythms.

Coker, meanwhile, brings an orchestral and symphonic focus tied to epic themes and boss combat. His job, in this collaboration, is framed as complementing Mentrix’s specialty in traditional Persian instrumentation—so the soundtrack can cover the game’s wide emotional and mechanical range without becoming predictable.

How the score stays “new but familiar”

Rather than building from specific prior Prince of Persia references, the team aimed for a familiar feel through the franchise’s identity—while still making the listening experience genuinely fresh. Coker and Mentrix describe the main theme as an original composition for this specific game, with additional sub-themes and melodies tied to characters, including the antagonist.

One of the collaboration’s key creative outcomes is that the soundtrack is intended to feel like a single entity even when musical styles shift. They point to production work and coordination across the wider Ubisoft music team as the glue that keeps the different approaches from clashing.

Boss identities, “massive” brass, and an animation-driven breakthrough

For boss fights, the design intent was strong individual identity—recognizable themes for each encounter, built to sound heavy and forceful. The direction described is blunt: the team wanted power, lots of brass, and a commanding sound palette. Raphaël Joffres adds that initial boss concept work leaned on virtual orchestration techniques that can closely emulate a real ensemble.

Joffres also highlights a moment of creative alignment tied to a track called “Fatherly Love.” He explains that once that piece landed, the team could point to a clear target and the rest of the score development moved forward smoothly. They also kept certain themes for later in production, so secondary character motifs could connect back to the main themes in a more deliberate way.

Mentrix contributes to the environment side as well—specifically mentioning work on the “Lower Citadel” biome—and describes how the team wanted the enemy’s perspective to feel like playing “at home.” Coker says he was inspired by animations, even though the time available created a challenge.

Metroidvania backtracking shaped the music structure

Because the game’s metroidvania structure involves returning to areas, Coker argues that repetition isn’t automatically a flaw. Instead, he frames redundancy as a tool for familiarity and for reinforcing player understanding—especially when the music and gameplay are truly synchronized. He also warns that overly constantly changing music can pull players out of immersion, and he credits balance: enough material to cover scenarios without overwhelming the player with novelty.

Mentrix describes a practical workflow for this: for each cue, she created three to five additional versions with extra instrumental variation. The source notes that a later Music Supervisor idea involved mixing across levels to bring out different colors—something that may not be obvious at soundtrack release time, but becomes noticeable in play as lighter or brassier arrangements of the same themes.

Combat versus exploration: a clear boundary with room for emotion

Coker says he wrote very few exploration themes outside the opening sequence, which makes the “edge” between combat and exploration deliberately easy to recognize. He emphasizes that exploration phases carry a different vibe from fights—especially boss combat—so the music can maintain distinct emotional behavior even though the game supports long-term navigation through regions.

Mentrix adds that the work for different biomes included guidance and references designed to avoid sounding like clichés, while still reviving an iconic game and pushing beyond its borders.

Persian instruments, Iran recordings, and a specific sound identity

Mentrix points to the daf as part of her signature sound. She explains its historical roots in spiritual practice within Sufi temples before it became more broadly accessible. She also discusses using tombak as ornament in selected pieces, while her main string focus is on the kamancheh, paired with other classical string instruments.

Recording is treated as a way to capture energy from place. She says she traveled to Iran in May 2022 to record sounds directly there, supplementing additional recording in Berlin and the Netherlands. As an example, she singles out the ney heard in the Lower Citadel biome as recorded in Iran with a master ney, aiming for an “energetic” connection to the game.

Japanese anime references and warlike orchestral energy

Among influences cited, Raphaël Joffres mentions sending an inspiration point from Attack on Titan—specifically its orchestral/electronic blend and aggressive tone. He says this was also a moment for him to revisit the first season, and he believes it affected how Coker approached writing themes.

Sound design and tech targets for Switch

The audio work wasn’t limited to music. Slimane Dellaoui describes a sound design pipeline handled internally in Montpellier, starting with Felix Tiévant and then shifting as Dellaoui arrived to do technical sound design before taking over work related to the main character’s “Camera, Character, Controller” areas. He also mentions revisiting NPCs and bosses.

Optimization is explicitly tied to platform performance: Dellaoui says he ensured the game ran well on Switch, with the goal of hitting a constant 60 fps in both docked and handheld modes. He worked with a Senior Sound Designer with 20 years of cinema experience, plus additional sound designers covering ambience and GPU, with a small active team during the final iteration year.

Dialogue recording support and music at Abbey Road

On the voice side, Dellaoui confirms involvement focused on the original language session. The team participated via video call with an artistic director and performers at Side UK, alongside Jacques Exertier responsible for direction. The described purpose was to refine delivery by giving performers context about intended emotion, especially since cinematics were not fully finalized at the time.

For music, Joffres and the others describe an unexpected opportunity: Abbey Road Studios in late September 2023 for strings and brass. They explain that Gareth had reserved availability for other projects, and the team asked if he could accommodate their recording needs. The schedule constraint meant the music had to be finished earlier to allow mixing and editing afterward.

In total, they recorded nearly 40 minutes of music over two three-hour sessions, watching the pieces they’d imagined for months come to life with a full brass and string presence.

Mentrix’s live plans and collaboration spirit

Mentrix closes with updates on her label, House of Strength. She says she originally created it to release her own music independently, then published other artists before stepping back as their success made her involvement less necessary. She also mentions shifting focus as managing a label became too time-consuming, and she now prepares an acoustic live set in Berlin on January 9 (the interview took place January 4).

Her live show is framed as a label-in-spirit collaboration: six women from different backgrounds involved in the event, including a pregnant percussionist and an Iranian queer percussionist, alongside other collaborators she highlights as a source of pride for the project.