We started talking about a variety of things, from the team’s inspiration for the anime to what it means to create this new Prince for the modern generation and what it really means to have strength. We hope you enjoy it.
Note. This article is a text adaptation of our video interview — if you’d like to watch the video, you’ll find it at the bottom of the page.
Nintendo Life: Very quickly before we start, like with Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, we wanted to ask if Godsmack will appear in this new game?
Joseph-Antoine Clavet: Godsmack will not have any songs in this game. [laughs]
What does your everyday life look like as a film director?
Going through scenarios with the team, seeing if we’re telling the right story in the right story beats. We will divide the scenario into scenarios. Once we like the scenarios created by the team, we will move on to animation. We’re going to animate those storyboards to see if the flow is correct, so we have the right edit.
With this game we decided to go with a hybrid format between using some mocap and some keyframes [animation]. We wanted to have the weight and natural animation that mocap can provide, but mocap has this limitation when you want to have something fast that looks like Shonen anime and you have a really huge sense of energy and power. So we did it in a hybrid.
I was also in charge of preparing the mocap shoot, directing the actors, and then I brought it back to my crew and started putting it together. We mostly use mocap for anything that might be a little more difficult. Sometimes we use keyframe for things that need some weight, like running, walking, natural moments where characters are talking and you want the subtlety of human movement. Always knowing that in this mocap we will take some of the key poses and then exaggerate or put focus on them. Everything that was more action-oriented, we will shoot with mocap in the sense of blocking, understanding the action. But then, most of it is redone in key frames to give it the sharpness and sense of elasticity or illusion of force that you see in Shonen anime in these over-the-top moments.
How early were you involved in the production? Were you there from the beginning?
As for the cinematics, we always come a little later because the game has to have its first breath before we start putting the cinematics into it. The game started development in 2020 and I arrived in mid-2021 when we started to have enough material to start building the cinematics.
It was a process of collaboration, iteration and discussion to find the right tone for the story we want to tell, because cinematography, in my opinion, should serve a purpose that drives the story, be a reward for the player, an omen [of] a big event or a big moment. And sometimes it can simply be something that closes a certain act or a certain moment of the story. So I arrived in the middle of 2021 and have been on the project since then until this moment.
Is there a favorite anime that you watched growing up or even in recent years that really helped shape this vision for this game?
[There were] many different types of references because depending on what you do, you want to find the right references. I grew up watching dragon ball every six hours, every morning was Dragon Ball. I was also a huge fan Sword of the Strangerwhich was the influence we put on different places and some cinematography. Ninja scroll it’s also not in tune with me because this is a tone that is a little heavier. Frantic, for me, is a masterpiece in manga terms. I like to have the whole series — that’s not the tone we’re going for, but [a] certain message that exists in this story. There were so many anime[s]. Some of the team, [their inspirations] was more Narutosome of the team was more Demon Slayer.
It was more a sense of style, how everything is larger than life in anime, how you feel overwhelmed and that elasticity in animation, the musicality of animation. When I say ‘musicality’, that has always been something that Mounir is [Radi], the game director, would always come back. Sometimes he knew how to explain something he wanted with sounds, and it worked! Like, it clicks right away – BA DA BA DUM BOOOO BAM! And all of a sudden you’re like, “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. We’re going to go in this direction.”
France is a big consumer of manga and anime. Huge. This is really part of their culture in terms of animation. A lot of the team grew up watching anime and that’s something that’s interesting from the French culture because even I—I come from Montreal—and every anime that I [would] You see when we were kids they were dubbed in France and it wasn’t yet in the United States or in Anglophone countries. It was there, but more niche.
It’s been about 14 years since the traditional Prince of Persia was released. How does it feel to be part of the crew that steers a new generation ship? A new generation of people will come and this will be their Prince of Persia.
That’s a pretty big deal. It is my honor. I grew up on those games, I grew up on Jordan Mechner games. Where it came from in this platform format, moving to a 3D format, even 3D has different tones, different ways of telling its story. It’s an honor when you grow up on a certain type of content, and when you become an adult and are able to create this content, you feel like you’re part of a myth that just keeps growing and growing.
During our preview session with The Lost Crown, another character questions Sargon about what’s at the end of his blade. Can you talk more about that?
ahh yes “The warrior’s journey has no end, and at the end of his journey, the warrior asks, ‘What is at the end of my blade?'”
This is a question that will have different answers depending on the people. Like your journey, like my journey, like everyone’s journey. Something that was very important to Mounir and Jacques [Exertier], who is the narrative director, was Warrior’s Journey. The Journey of Miyamoto Musashi, for example. We wanted something that has these really martial questions that are more philosophical and don’t have a precise answer, but make you wonder what type of warrior you’re going to be.
When we talk about it with the team, “What’s on the end of your blade?” [For] some people, “It shall be my enemies,” some people may be, “the blood of my enemy,” some may be, “my own reflection.” But some people might tell you, “Maybe this is me,” because the end of the Blade might be the handle.
So it’s a question that doesn’t have one answer, just like the Warrior’s journey, just like everyone’s journey, and this is the journey we wanted to give Sargon. At first he is very proud of his skills, but what does it mean to be strong? Do you mean just the muscles? [or] swords? Or does it mean learning kindness? Does that mean studying poetry? Does it mean being bigger than a man with swords? And so this sentence is just the beginning of Sargon’s journey. What will be his story about growing up? Will he [be] faithful to his path and will he be the same man [as] In the beginning? Will he be just a gifted swordsman or more?
It is an unanswered question that has a different meaning for everyone. The second question was, what does it mean to be strong? You could be the strongest in the room with your muscles, but if this isn’t the situation, you can’t go through life punching everybody, you know? And that’s what we wanted for Sargon. We wanted something that was more than just a guy using swords. What will become through the journey?
This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.
Big thanks to Joseph-Antoine Clavet for taking the time to share his passion for this medium with us. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is scheduled to launch on Switch and other platforms on January 18, 2024. Travel expenses for this interview were covered by Ubisoft.