Unknown 9 Awakening Is Ambitious, But Its Gameplay Uninteresting

In today’s gaming market, launching a new IP must be difficult. Game development costs have ballooned and audiences have become accustomed to a slurry of sequels, remakes and remasters. Plus, there are so many games to play, fans tend to steer to what they know best.

That hasn’t stopped Reflector Entertainment and Bandai Namco from going all in on Unknown 9 Awakening, a new, multi-medium franchise set on a sci-fi version of earth. I got to see a presentation with the developers and some hands-off gameplay, and while it didn’t do much for me, I respect their aspirations.

Grand Ambitions

During the roughly 30-minute presentation I had for Unknown 9 Awakening, the development team shared their grand plans for the franchise.

With civilization vanishing from Earth, nine immortal guardians have been left with the knowledge to slowly redevelop and help the world. Unfortunately, as Voltaire once said, “With great power comes great responsibility” and these nine guardians are hunted for their knowledge. Two forces, The Leap Year Society and The Ascendants, want this knowledge for different purposes — The Leap Year Society feel the knowledge should be shared sooner and The Ascendants want the power for their own, selfish purposes. It’s down to protagonist Haroona to stop these groups, using powers from a parallel dimension called the Fold.

It’s peak sci-fi storytelling and feeds into Reflector Entertainment’s wider vision. The team has released, or is in the process of releasing, the Unknown 9 Awakening game, Unknown 9 Torment, a comic book, Unknown 9 Out of Sight, a scripted podcast, and Unknown 9 Genesis, a novel trilogy, with the tease of more “coming soon” on the website.

You have to commend the team for backing themselves to create a multi-medium universe. However, the skeptic in me worries that it’ll need a big marketing push. Creating at least four stories, across four different mediums, is a lot and relies on things catching fire. I may be oblivious to the franchise, however, this was the first I’d heard about it, and I worry that Unknown 9 Awakening might not get the push it needs. That being said, with the weight of Bandai Namco behind it, it may not be as big of a concern as I think.

Unknown 9 Awakening The Game

While I admire Reflector Entertainment’s big plan, even if I have some concerns about it, my bigger worry is about how the game will be received. Built on a core gameplay loop of combat, active stealth and stepping (the ability to control other people), Haroona will have to travel across various beautiful real-world locations to thwart The Ascendants.

In the brief gameplay demo I got to see, there was some mild exploration before Haroona was faced with a group of enemies guarding a generator she needed to reach. The combat scenario was presented almost as a puzzle, with enemies patrolling different areas. While Haroona could head in all guns blazing, it wouldn’t have been wise, and instead, she showcased her umbral powers, namely stepping.

Stepping as a mechanic is super-interesting, the ability to take control of enemies to turn the tide in combat is a game changer, the rest of what I saw was just a bit… vanilla. Given that this particular section was late in the game, there seemed to be very limited challenge, and it struck me as something that you’d encounter much earlier on. It could just be because the devs had played that section countless times and made it look easy, but even still, stepping aside, there was nothing that I hadn’t seen dozens of times before.

I think Haroona as a character has the potential to be incredibly interesting. She’s from a background rarely seen in video games, and her role in the wider story is intriguing, but everything I saw suggested the gameplay won’t necessarily do her justice. Seeing the passion and belief from the developers genuinely makes me hope the game, and series as a whole, perform, but I can’t help but worry that Unknown 9 Awakening will face a similar fate to the likes of Immortals of Aveum or Forspoken.

You can check out all of our coverage from this year’s Summer Game Fest right here.