Actress Eman Ayaz has said she’s lost three years of work in a “life-changing role,” just days after Ubisoft canceled its long-awaited Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake.
“So hi, my name is Eman, I’m an actor, and last week I experienced the most devastating moment of my career,” Ayaz said in a video message posted online today. “I’m still under NDA so I’m going to try my best to speak as vaguely as possible about the details, and I hope you understand.”
At no point does Ayaz specifically say the game she worked on was Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake, but the actress has also retweeted comments from those who have linked her to the role of Farah in the game, seemingly making the connection clear.
The most devastating moment of my acting career: https://t.co/ZzbWftGL1t
— Eman Ayaz (@emanayazz) January 26, 2026
“Three years ago I booked a life-changing role on a life-changing project,” Ayaz began. “It was a rigorous audition process, including a self-tape audition, an in-person callback, and a chemistry read that I had to fly out of the city for. When I got the role I remember crying my eyes out.
“I’ve spent the last three years getting to know the team which has become like a family to me. I’ve watched it grow through countless stages of development and I’ve waited and waited for it to finally be released so I could talk about it. And this week, I found out through the internet that the project was canceled.”
Ayaz says she was first contacted by her brother who had seen the news of the game’s cancelation via an online article. Ubisoft confirmed it had canned its Prince of Persia: The Sans of Time Remake last week, as part of a wider reorganization that featured layoffs at three development studios, the closure of two more, and the shutdown of five other game projects.
“I was in total shock,” Ayaz continued. “Just two months ago I filmed marketing for this project, everything had been running smoothly and that was the last I had heard. We were all looking forward to it being released this year, so it felt like an emotional whiplash to suddenly find this out in such a random way.”
Indeed, a report late last year suggested Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake was finally just a few months away, after first being announced in 2020. The project was then rebooted, with its most recent incarnation having been in development since early 2023.
“When I initially booked this role, what it said to me was that all the sacrifices I had made, going against my parents’ advice, pursuing my dreams, all the heartbreaks I’d had along the way, all the close calls, all the rejections, they finally had added up to something,” Ayaz added, discussing the personal toll the cancelation had taken.
Ayaz said she’d turned down other job oppurtunities during the process and worked on the job while recovering from an injury as she had been passionate about not missing out. “It was the best performance of my career, and now no one will ever see it.”
A Canadian citizen, Ayaz said she had planned to apply for a U.S. work visa based on having the game on her CV, something she can no longer do as she is unable to officially acknowledge her work on it. And as someone with Pakistani heritage, Ayaz said the cancelation had been yet another setback after working “twice as hard as non-marginalized actors to find space in the industry.” She added: “It’s an upward battle and it’s going to continue to be that way. It’s like you think you had your foot on a ledge, and it’s crumbled. And you have to start again, and it’s just as steep.”
For its part, Ubisoft told Prince of Persia fans that despite six years of work, the game was still too far away from being ready to fund any further. “We weren’t able to reach the level of quality you deserve,” the company said in a statement, “and continuing would have required more time and investment than we could responsibly commit.”
“Sadly the entertainment industry isn’t just about entertainment,” Ayaz concluded, “it’s about guaranteeing a cash flow. And that means making decisions that treat people’s lives as collateral damage, and art as disposable content… This project existed, even if the world never got to see it. So many talented artists devoted countless hours to make this happen. And that doesn’t just disappear, it’ll be in our hearts forever, as fricking corny as that sounds… The only way these stories survive is if the audience demands them.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
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