Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is the direct sequel to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Seven years later, the Prince is hunted by a monster known as Dahaka. He finds out that anyone who manipulates the Sands of Time is destined to die shortly afterwards; but the Prince has escaped his fate, and that's the reason for Dahaka's rage. Now the Prince must travel to the mysterious Island of Time, where he hopes to find the Empress of Time and, through time manipulation, somehow prevent her from creating the Sands in the first place...
The game comes with a new, darker look for the Prince and his surroundings. The fights are more brutal and take a larger part in the game, as the Prince now has enhanced fighting moves including new attack moves via walls and poles.
Even though the fights make up a large part of the game, the puzzle sections are still present and more complicated than before. A new move in the puzzle sections of the game is the curtain slide, which allows you to slide down to the ground slowly. There are still plenty of options for time manipulation and the storyline also lets you travel back and forth in time, visiting the same locations in an alternate time period.
If the players is able to collect all live upgrades, he can retrieve the final sword upgrade (Water sword) from the hourglass chamber and unlock the canonical ending (The Two Thrones) by fighting the Dahaka. Whiteout the upgrades the sword cannot be retrieved and the player is forced to fight Kaileena the Empress of Time. This also happens if one chooses to not take up the Water sword.
Jordan Mechner
In the December 2005 issue of Wired Magazine, Jordan Mechner(the developer of the original Prince of Persia who was not involved of the development of this game) was not happy with the direction of Warrior Within. He said "I'm not a fan of the artistic direction, or the violence that earned it an M rating. The story, character, dialog, voice acting, and visual style were not to my taste." However, he was quite happy when the direction taken by The Two Thrones.
Awards
4Players
2004 – Best PC Action-Adventure Game of the Year
GamePro (Germany)
2004 - Best Console Action-Adventure in 2004 (Readers' Vote)