Princes are born into their birthright, but as protagonist Sargon in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, you’ll have to work hard to earn rewards. But look sharp Immortal, because our beginner’s tips will help you navigate Mount Qaf, upgrade early, and excel in combat. Whether you’re after exploration advice or taking on earl bosses, follow the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown tips and tricks for beginners below to step up your swordplay and secure a stash of time crystals.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown tips and tricks for beginners
© Ubisoft
Our beginners tips for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown cover both exploration and combat. But if you’re looking to get straight to the general combat tips, then head down to the bottom of the list.
1. Follow the main path until you reach the first Wak-Wak tree
© Ubisoft
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has a lengthy introductory section before you’re properly let loose in the main area of Mount Qaf. It is possible to divert from the main route a little early on, but you won’t have access to many of the game’s core features.
We highly recommend that you follow the main route and story at least until you reach the first Wak-Wak tree. They’re easy enough to find as wisps of golden light and leaves will guide you toward them when you’re one room away.
© Ubisoft
Here you’ll reach a checkpoint and be introduced to several important characters, gain access to upgrades and soon be able to practice combat mechanics (more on that shortly). We’d recommend pushing forward further until you unlock the Bow and Chakram too, but you can branch off to discover other paths and sidequests already from here.
2. Make use of Custom Difficulty settings
The standard difficulty settings in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown are solid enough, but if you’re having trouble with one particular aspect of the game – like parrying – or just want to make your adventure more enjoyable, then check out the Custom difficulty options under System and Difficulty in the pause menu.
Here you can adjust a lot more than basic aspects like enemy health and damage. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown allows you to tweak the parry timing or charge rate of Athra and whether it decays. Don’t be afraid to tweak these settings to better suit your level of experience instead of relying on the pre-described options.
3. Always explore and check for secrets
Mount Qaf is rife with secrets. Once you have the core set of tools, you’ll find loads of opportunities to divert from the main path and uncover hidden secrets. Think you might be able to wall jump to a higher level? Give it a go, because you probably can – especially after getting an air dash upgrade after your first main boss and can zoom right back to the same wall to keep climbing it vertically.
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Exploration will reward you with side quests, collectibles, maps to purchase, and valuable items to help you upgrade Sargon’s gear. There are even invisible walls you can discover and break through to access troves of Time Crystals or tougher enemies. As you move through each room, make sure you’re scanning for potential alternate paths and hidden chambers. You won’t regret finding them.
4. Don’t sprint all the time
Hold dodge/slide and Sargon will break into a sprint afterwards. Very useful for getting through rooms, but a pain when it comes to platforming. Many of the game’s precise jumping sequences are much more manageable if you ease off that sprint trigger. Yes, you wanna go fast, but even Sonic has to slow down sometimes.
5. Mark the map often
When you do run into a path you can’t yet take – be it a jump too large or a barrier you’ve no way or surpassing – Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has a brilliant feature to help. Once you’ve made it to the first Wak-Wak tree, you’ll unlock the ability to save images of an area onto your map.
© Ubisoft
On console, hold down on the D-Pad and you’ll attach an image of the current screen to that its position on the map. When you unlock a new ability, these saved memories make it extremely easy to quickly identify places you should return to.
You can also turn on Guided mode and the game will automatically mark paths that aren’t open to you with your current skillset once you find them. And then, when you eventually receive the required power, it will change the icon to an unlocked door, giving you a hit list of places to return to without you having to drop a single map marker.
6. Dodging is far safer than parrying
We’ll dive into full combat tips later, but a basic rule of thumb of newcomers is that dodging is much, much safer than parrying. Mistime a parry and you’ll take extra damage and a hit to your Athra reserves. Yes, parrying is powerful, and well-worth using against yellow reckless attacks. But early in the game, you’ll get almost the same reward from dodging past or away from enemies as you do from parrying them. In fact, it’s essential to dodge instead of parry against a few of the early bosses. Focus on avoiding hits and continuing combos first and you’ll find more success early.
7. Train with Artaban to learn combat fundamentals
After you reach the first Wak-Wak tree and the Magi Emporium, you can head upwards within the same room to find Artaban. Interact with him and you’ll gain access to combat tutorials. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown beginners should definitely complete these.
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In doing the tutorials you’ll learn some important tricks for fighting, and also gain 50 Time Crystals per tutorial completed as well as a new Athra Surge for finishing the lot. Do them all and you’ll almost have enough saved up to buy a key early upgrade from the Magi Emporium like an extra potion flask. Very handy if you’re struggling with combat, speaking of which...
8. Remember to return and upgrade
As you explore Mount Qaf, you'll occaisionally reach Fast Travel points which are handy for getting you to and fro, including back to the hub area of The Haven. Returning here often to purchase upgrades is a good idea as you built up a supply of Time Crystals, steel, and other resources. We highly recommend prioritizing the Magi Emporium upgrades to your healing potion count and the blacksmith forge upgrades to your swords, Layla & Qays. After those, upgrading your favored amulets and arrow count can also help a great deal as you explore the halls and face more powerful foes.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown combat tips
Sargon has a lot of fights to face, so for the last of our Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown beginner’s tips, we’ve got a collection of quick combat tips that’ll help you counter and cut down your foes.
Get creative with combos - don’t just mash
Against weaker enemies, you can string together lengthy chains of moves before you knock them away. For a basic string, try looping sweeps (down attacks) with a single regular hit several times before launching your enemy upward. The key is not landing the “finishing” blow which completes the combo and send your opponent backwards.
Hold launch attacks to follow your enemies upwards
In case you skipped the tutorials (naughty, naughty), it’s important to know that you can continue combos in the air after launching a grounded enemy by holding the attack button. If you do, Sargon will launch into the air with them, allowing you to land followup attacks and even slam them back down to the ground.
You can’t parry red attacks
Again, another tutorial lesson that’s key to know is that you can’t parry attacks preceded by a red gleam. Save your parries for Reckless Attacks indicated in yellow, and make sure to dodge red attacks instead.
© Ubisoft
You can parry projectiles (including the Chakram)
Archers and ranged enemies are a pain, but you can send their attacks back at them in most cases by parrying the projectile. Once you’ve unlocked the Chakram, you can also parry it’s return path, sending it bouncing back out to repeatedly strike enemies in its path.
Bonus tip: enjoy the soundtrack (and sound effects) best with a HyperX Cloud III headset
Finally, for our last Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown beginners tip, it's worth noting that the game includes a glorious soundtrack that your ears really deserve to appreciate fully. To get the most out of it, grab yourself a gaming headset like the HyperX Cloud III. Compatible with PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch, its angled 53mm drivers will draw you into Sargon's time-tangled adventures like never before, and help you pick out key attack audio cues during tense boss fights. Check out the rest of our recommended best gear for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown here, then get back into the game!
