Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown's story DLC Mask Of Darkness is out now

Resolving the fate of sexy Voldo

I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying that Ubisoft's best game of this year won't be Star Wars Outlaws or the as-yet unreleased Assassin's Creed Shadows, it'll be Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown. The sidescrolling metroidvania is a rich, expansive, and surprisingly challenging take on a genre typically dominated by indies, and it's precisely the kind of game I wish mega-publishers produced more.

It's also now got a story expansion, Mask Of Darkness, which came out yesterday.

Marsk Of Darkness adds a new chapter accessible in The Lost Crown's late game, which traps protagonist Sargon in the mind palace of Radjen, one of the Immortals you spend your time with in the original's runtime. She was the only one of the group that didn't come to a clear resolution, which was a big flashing bulb signalling an inevitable expansion.

Since this is a late-game DLC, it's expected that players will have unlocked all of Prince Of Persia's powers before you tackle it, and that you've attained some mastery of its tricky jumps, dashes, and blocks. Ubisoft recommend you refresh your skills by first playing the Divine Trials, which are 22 expert-level challenges that were added in a free patch back in June.

Honestly, those Divine Trials are thumb-breakingly hard, and I'd expect the story DLC to be a cut below overall, at least bar the no-doubt inevitable boss fight. Either way, The Lost Crown is the rare game which I finished wanting more of, which puts me in the unusual position of being the hypothetical target audience for an expansion. Break my thumbs, then.

Mask Of Darkness costs £4.29/€5/$5, which doesn't seem too bad to me, via Ubisoft Connect and the Epic Games Store. It's also available via Steam, since the game joined Valve's storefront back in August.