- Ubisoft has unveiled a new "Prince of Persia," a popular video game first released in 1989.
- And for the first time in its three-decade history, the Prince of Persia will speak Farsi.
"Prince of Persia" released its first major installment in nearly 14 years and its first title since it was first unveiled in 1989 in which the characters will actually speak Farsi.
Ubisoft released "Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown" on Thursday for the Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and PC.
This latest verion is the first in the series to be developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, a subsidiary of Ubisoft, according to the BBC.
The game's designer, Mounir Radi, told the outlet that the developers wanted to "depict and to respect Persia and Iran" in the gameplay.
"It was natural for us to say, 'if we are going into this culture, we have to be true to this culture, we have to do this,'" Radi told the BBC.
The game's developers told the BBC that it has several updates to make it appealing to modern gamers, such as heightened graphics inspired by the blockbuster animated film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse."
Among the updates for the new version was an increased effort to add elements like language and history that made the game more authentic to the region it depicts, producer Abdelhak Elguess told the BBC.
In pne example, Elguess said the developers wove elements of Zoroastrianism — a religion founded in what is now Iran — into the game, BBC reported.
"We have so many people from Persian cultures that are very happy," Elguess said.
One user on Reddit said they were glad Ubisoft added a dub option in Farsi, but were surprised because the company did not add a Greek option in "Assassins Creed: Odyssey," which notably attracted controversy over its depiction of ancient Greeks as racially diverse.
"This is a necessity because just imagine there is a video game set in USA. And they decided not to add English language support," the post says. "This is the same. And Ubisoft did this for decades."
Another Reddit user said under the same post that the option to use Persian dialogue in the game made him "finally feel seen" by others in the gaming community.