“I set a trap, and you sprang it Gloriously!” - Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown – Mask of Darkness DLC Review
Developer: Ubisoft | Platform: PS5 | Playtime: 4:55
After 100%ing the base game (but before the final boss), I took on the game’s DLC, The Mask of Darkness. The plot of the DLC has you hunt down the most mysterious member of the Immortals – Radjen, who admittedly kind of disappeared from the story in the main game. Fair warning if you choose to play, this DLC is a fair bit harder than that which has come before.
Moderate gameplay spoilers follow, reader discretion is advised.
Instead of Mount Qaf, Mask of Darkness takes place inside of Radjen’s Mind Palace – anyone who’s played the Batman: Arkham games will understand the concept. Radjen is sadistic and cruel due to her upbringing (which is explored in the DLC) so instead of the bright sandstone of the base game, you have an eclipse in the sky and rivers of blood. Again for story reasons the enemies and locales have more of a Kushan aesthetic rather than a Persian one which is a nice change of pace.
Upon entering the DLC, Sargon is stripped of all his amulets and healing vials, is reduced to the base 3 chunks of health and is only allowed to use his dash and teleport abilities. Admittedly I’m a little mixed on this. I understand that the DLC is balanced around these restrictions so removing some of your powers makes sense. The DLC can also be accessed early, after Mission 3, The Tiger and the Rat which is before you’ll unlock a lot of powers. That being said, given the difficulty of the DLC you’d probably not do it straight away anyways. Removing your amulets however seems a bit overkill.
I keep mentioning the difficulty so let’s finally talk about it. The DLC is certainly more challenging than the base game, requiring a stronger knowledge of mechanics and being able to adapt to new elements sometimes on the fly. At times this does fall into Trial and Error territory with some ‘ha ha gotcha’ moments too but they’re not so egregious as to be considered unfair. Radjen’s mind palace introduces a range of new platforming challenges from moveable warp orbs, gravity wells that need hit to launch Sargon, platforms that disappear when the player leaves them, poles that can be leapt from and rotated and more. There is a ton of new ideas here for something that is only DLC and that is commendable on the part of the Devs. The DLC wraps up with a boss fight against Radjen which is easily the hardest in the game and quality wise is easy in the top 3. Difficult but learnable, very fun fight.
A great addition to an already fantastic game, all for a measly fiver. If you enjoyed the game, you owe it to yourself to play Mask of Darkness. It is challenging sure, but a worthwhile challenge for those who want to prove their mastery over the game.
