The New POP game isnt related to the "sands of time" trilogy at all, infact its a whole new chapter in the POP Series.
According to Ubidays Interview,a new Prince of Persia will be depicted as a wanderer at first, who while returning home from an adventure with his "bearings" and a donkey named "Lady with Treasure", to spend his rest of life in peace. But all of a sudden, he is caught by a fierce sandstorm, which throws him off of his original path, and he finds himself in a forbidden land - a mythical garden of beauty, dominated at its center by a massive Tree of Life. Imprisoned in the Tree of Life is Ahriman, the "Ancient Evil God of Darkness", who was imprisoned within the tree by his twin brother Ormazd, the "Ancient God of Light". The Prince accidentally unleashes Ahriman from the Tree. After being set free, Ahriman starts corrupting the lands with darkness and evil. The Prince is about to leave the lands and allow the consequences of his mistake to spread on the whole world, he is encountered by a young woman named Elika, a descendant of the Ahuras, a group of people who guarded the imprisonment of Ahriman. Elika asks the The Prince for his help to undo what he had done and bring back peace to the world by stopping Ahriman, and cleansing the world of it's darkness.
******************************THE PRINCE ******************************
*********************************ELIKA**************************************
Unlike the previous games, POP 2008 will use a heavily modified version of the Schmitar Engine, which was also used in Assassin's Creed. Developers chose to implement an illustrative graphical style, similar to cel-shaded graphics. Other features include improved artificial intelligence, detailed graphics, rich environments and an open-world, that will allow to create a non-linear gameplay.
Here's The Official Trailer :
& heres an interview with POP producer Ben Mattes, talkin about the story, gameplay & other elements.
POP is all set to release this year and damn its gonna be great.