Checklists
All Interactive Maps and Locations
Citadel Elevator Sawblade Challenge Room Guide
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is full of many challenging platforming rooms, but one optional challenge room might be the hardest you'll find. See below for our guide to completing the secret sawblade challenge room located along the Citadel Elevator in the Lower City.
If you bought the Lost Key from the Scrapper in his shop in The Depths next to the Citadel Elevator, you've already been able to make a stop on a hidden floor halfway between the Lower City and The Depths. Now that you can double jump, the second part of this unlockable area is now open to you.
How to Unlock the Sawblade Challenge Room
You can first gain access to the part of the Lower City where the challenge room is early on, after you've fallen into The Depths during The Tiger and the Rat, but without the map, it's better to find your way in the next quest - The Path to the Sand Prison. Making your way back up The Depths, you can find a room with the Citadel Elevator that takes you back to The Haven, but going left will let you speak to an odd merchant named the Scrapper, who only takes Xerxes Coins as currency.
The Scrapper sells an Old Key, and this will unlock a secret floor halfway between The Depths and the Lower City, and you can use it immediately to find a Treasure Chest with an Amulet, but the true challenge will be a bit later. You'll have to wait until you complete The Darkest of Souls main quest to gain the Gravity Wings power to be able to double jump, and this challenge room will now be open to you.
Be warned - what lies ahead is arguably one of the toughest challenges of non-stop trap avoiding acrobatics you'll find in Prince of Persia, and will require you to be in tune with all of the Time Powers you've gained so far.
Return to the hidden floor along the elevator using the Old Key, and use the pole in the middle of the room to jump up to this small arena, and the trap will activate. Similar to the one you had to endure during Kaheva's side quest to get the Ore, you'll need to dodge a series of spinning sawblade traps in quick succession, and they'll come at you in very different formats:
- The first set of traps are easy enough, comprised of moving columns of sawblades that you need to jump over, wall-jump to the very top, or dash in-between as they pass.
- At the end of this segment, evenly spaced sawblades will appear on the the bottom and top of the room, and switch places. The trap will try to fake you out by having the descending blades move at the last second and end at the exact spots the lowers blades began in, so simply do not move for this segment.
- For the next segment, entire rows and columns of sawblades will move across the room with no possible gaps, meaning you'll need to use the Shadow of the Simurgh to create a point to teleport to before they hit you.
- Next up, more columns of spiked sawblades will appear, but a few in the middle will be colored purple. You'll need to use Clairvoyance while platforming to dash through them. Eventually, you'll have to start alternating realities between jumps. If no colored sawblades appear, quickly create a Shadow Point to teleport to the other side of them.
- After the wall of sawblades you must teleport through, the dimensional sawblades will appear much faster and closer together, requiring you to dash through all or most of them instead of jumping between them.
- Finally, the sawblades will start appearing in rows at the top or bottom, densely packed and with only a few dimensional ones to slip through. Eventually only one sawblade in the whole row can be bypassed with Clairvoyance, so move quickly, or have a Shadow Point prepped to get from one side of the room to the other fast before they fully descend.
Complete the gauntlet in a single attempt, and a hatch at the top will open. You can wall-jump and dash below it, then double jump up into the hatch to find a Treasure Chest at the top holding a new Lilac Cosmetic Skin for Sargon.