the Prince once more as he walks away into the desert. Development The Forgotten Sands began production at series developer and publisher Ubisoft prior to 2008, while development was ongoing on a series reboot. Beginning life as a video game tie-in with the movie adaptation of The Sands of Time, the movie's delay prompted the game to be reworked as a return to the Sands of Time continuity, serving as both a reboot and a return to a well-liked part of the series. This approach allowed it to act as a counterpart to the 2008 reboot. The Forgotten Sands was also intended to win back players which had been "lost" to the God of War series, with the design focus being on narrative and artistic design. Rather than a single version across multiple platforms, different versions were made to play to each platform's strengths and weaknesses. The Wii version was developed by Ubisoft Quebec. The game was made an interqual set in the seven year gap between The Sands of Time and Warrior Within, showing some of the hardships endured by the Prince which caused his personality shift in the latter game. Due to sharing a similar chronological setting, all versions of the game used the same title. Production on the Wii version lasted between two and three years, with a team of both series veterans and newcomers. At its peak, the production team was made up of seventy people. Mario Lord was director, Marc Parenteau was lead programmer, while the art director was Thierry Dansereau. The team as a whole were excited to work on the Prince of Persia license. According to lead designer Yanick Piche, the game was designed "from the ground up" for the platform, optimising the technical elements to push the Wii hardware as much as they could. Scaleform GFx was licensed for the game's UI and animated textures, explained as allowing more complex-looking graphics without impacting the game's performance. To promote a smooth game experience, the Wii version was designed to run at 60 frames per second, and included small aesthetic elements that helped players find their way through the level. The control design, which made heavy use of the Wii Remote pointer, was chosen based on feedback from testers finding the flow of gameplay broken by needing to use the Wii Remote's D-pad. Co-op was included because of the Wii's reputation as a "social