Diving into all the extended fiction ahead of the game’s release
As we prepare for the release of Bandai Namco’s upcoming brand new third person action adventure, Unknown 9: Awakening, we decided to dig into the game’s already ambitious world. You see, there’s already a pretty vast universe in other forms of media, such as books and comics already. Here’s a look at the connected universe of Unknown 9!
What is Unknown 9?
Unknown 9: Awakening may seem like a brand new IP, and in gaming terms it certainly is one, as Japanese publisher Bandai Namco and Quebec-based developer Reflector Entertainment are about to unleash this ambitious adventure on October 18th, 2024 – on PC and current-gen and last-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles alike. Many may be unaware, however, that this universe was started getting planned out many years ago, with some of its first building blocks releasing as early as 2020 – a whole 4 years ago! With well-written books, a thrilling podcast, a promising comic and a lot more to come in the future, the world of Unknown 9 goes well beyond the end credits of the videogame.
But what’s even this universe about, warranting such a vast array of stories and narratives? Without entering deep spoiler territory, these stories are set between the 21st and the 20th century, with much of the lore extending even farther back in time, following various characters all coming face to face with weird facets of our reality. Much of it revolves around the so-called Fold, a dark and mysterious alternate reality that exists beside our own, one that certain gifted people are able to see, visit, or even… use.
The Fold defies much of the known laws of physics, with the Genesis book trilogy in particular exploring how this bizarre discovery impacted the already fast-evolving scientific world in the 20th century. But The Fold is knowledge, power, and it can be the key to unlock mystical powers, win wars before they even begin, or even save our planet before our over-industrialization kills us. As such, we’ll keep hearing stories of the shadow organization Leap Year Society, but also a splinter group that tries to overcome them, called the Ascendants. We’ll discover what the mythological Unknown 9 are, and each element of this transmedia project gives us different points of view at the same universe, being set in largely different timeframes across a century or so of narratives.
In preparation for the review of Unknown 9: Awakening on Xbox Series X, I decided to get through all the extended media projects currently available: the already released two books of the Genesis trilogy by Layton Green, the first issue of the Torment comic, and season 1 of the podcast Out of Sight. On top of the upcoming conclusion of all these stories, there will be upcoming web series and more. Each story is designed to be stand-alone and understandable on its own, but all of them reveal interesting details of the present, past and future of the Unknown 9 universe. Now, let’s start with something I’ve never ever done: a review for a podcast!
Unknown 9: Out of Sight (Podcast, 2020 – ?)
My personal journey into the Unknown 9 universe began by listening to the free podcast, called Out of Sight, with its currently only season having released back in 2020. It’s a show that consists of 9, approximately 25 minutes long episodes, though two story-heavy ones extend beyond the 40 minute mark as well. It’s a paranormal podcast set in the current days of this shared universe, and the main character is Blake Elrich, an investigative paranormal podcaster. He keeps discovering or being called for unexplainable, bizarre, generally paranormal phenomena all across the United States, as he documents what he finds, playing the various dialogue he has with the people he finds, providing commentary over it and so forth.
Quite early in the story, we notice he isn’t alone in this journey, and is in fact accompanied by the female voice of Lazari. But her voice is strange, echoed, and while people do talk with her from time to time, the way everyone seems to treat her feels… off. Clearly, something’s unusual about Lazari, and by the gripping and highly emotional 4th chapter, we start understanding why is that. Indeed, from that point onward, what started as an X-Files or The Twilight Zone style paranormal divulgation show, ends up becoming a search for something far bigger than the protagonists may have imagined, as the stakes also keep going up.
While the format of the show never changes, with our duo traveling to new locations to investigate paranormal oddities, there’s an increasing amount of overarching narrative, culminating in a bombastic final episode that both gives solid answers and makes me crave for more of Blake’s adventures. It’s a well-written, well-produced, well-acted and highly entertaining podcast with all sorts of supernatural events, ancient conspiracies and drama, with the chemistry between Blake and the mysterious Lazari being the glue that holds such disparate elements together all so well.
It’s frankly an excellent podcast that I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone into paranormal mysteries, regardless in their level of involvement with the Unknown 9 universe. It’s also the most creative product, thus far, in terms of how the Fold impacts our very own reality, with many seemingly ordinary small town ghost stories turning into something far more bizarre. Go check it out, it’s available both on services like Spotify and Apple Music, and freely listenable in its entirety on Bandai Namco’s own website – after a free registration, that is.
Score: 9 out of 10
Unknown 9: Torment (comic book, 2020 – ?)
This one will be short because, frankly, there’s just not enough material out yet to properly judge Torment. A single issue has been released, back in 2020, as a collaborative effort between artists Brandon Thomas, Francis Portela and Leonardo Paciarotti di Maggio – all 3 with DC and Marvel experience, on top of various original endeavours as well. The beginning of this story follows young man Jaden Crowe, whose mysterious past and his link to a strange power remain giant question marks in his life. When his friend Neeka invites him to an important press conference by the previously unknown Leap Year Society, he finds himself in the middle of a faction war he didn’t even know to exist, but one that immediately involves him and his connection to the strange power.
The visuals wouldn’t be out of place in a DC or Marvel comic, which isn’t surprising given the resumé of the authors involved, with a detailed, somewhat realistic yet exaggerated style reminiscent of Alex Ross’ works. The striking colour shift between “our” world and The Fold is striking and pleasant, with the detail-rich style visuals aptly conveying the characters’ real emotions. All fine and well, and the beginning of this story shows some level of promise, but it’s been 4 years and the comic has yet to progress beyond its pilot issue of two dozen pages or so. I’d say that the press conference held by the Leap Year Society will likely have enormous implications in stories set after this comic, but it’s hard to really judge how that all plays out just yet. Big comic book fans and Unknown 9 completionists should definitely check it out, anyone else can probably wait for this story to go anywhere.
Score: n/a
Unknown 9: Genesis (book 1 of the Genesis trilogy, 2020)
American writer Layton Green, that you may know predominantly from the Dominic Grey novels, delivers us Genesis, the first of 3 books in the trilogy of the same name. In the 432 pages of this sci-fi-infused thriller, PhD student Andie Robertson has to deal with the sudden and mysterious death of her mentor, the renowned physicist Dr. James Corwin. Bit of a father figure for her, as her real parents both pretty much disappeared from her life in one way or another, dealing with loss would have been hard enough – but then she receives Corwin’s last message, that contains a strange puzzle and a warning not to trust anyone with this information.
With this hardly original premise, starts a journey across half the globe, touching locations such as London, Venice and Alexandria, as Andie needs to figure out this Da Vinci Code-esque mystery. It’s no pleasant summer vacation either, as her snooping around Corwin’s affairs seems to anger a mysterious group of people, who are trying to catch Andie – who knows, perhaps the very same people that god rid of Dr. Corwin in the first place? As is the case with many protagonists in the Unknown 9 universe, Andie sees things others don’t, visions of a dark world she doesn’t understand, but once again this ability will play a part in the events that unfold.
Layton Green’s writing style is very pleasant, with the author having taken a trip across multiple countries to be able to vividly put iconic locales onto paper. He expertly does so, without his descriptions being overly long or boring. The action flows at a cut-throat pace, and while some of the dialogue feels a little stilted at times, there’s both a sense of urgency and purpose to things, with even seemingly less impactful moments end up revealing important details of characters and events.
The story jumps back and forth between multiple points of view of generally well-written characters: Andie herself, the disgraced investigative journalist Cal Miller, a hitman named Omer. Even a story that happened about 90 years earlier, back in the 1930’s, when an Italian physicist named Ettore Majorana disappeared in mysterious circumstances. His story, too, is very gripping, as his research goes in parallel with the rise of the atrocities of nazi Germany and fascist Italy, with various moral dilemmas that the scientists at the time had to face when inventing new technologies.
With Dr. Corwin’s puzzle revealing some never before seen technologies, perhaps our protagonists’ cunning in figuring out every piece of the convoluted, maybe overly convoluted puzzle becomes a bit hard to believe. Yet, an exciting finale that both puts an end to various plotlines and opens up major questions for the future books, kept me on my toes for the second book. Genesis isn’t the most original thriller ever, with the structure very reminiscent of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code in particular, but the mystery underneath is intriguing, with the enjoyable writing style that made it easy to devour this book in mere days. Even without the Unknown 9 connection, Genesis is a great thriller with an intriguing mystery that fans of the genre should enjoy.
Score: 8 out of 10
Unknown 9: Revelation (book 2 of the Genesis trilogy, 2021)
In this 424-page follow-up to Genesis, and with yet another Bible-related name, the story continues mere minutes after the previous book did, as the puzzle-ridden journey continues. I’ll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible, but I can say that there’s even more mysteries, a lot more is understood about the forces involved in the conflict that fell on Andie’s head. We also finally learn a lot from the background of various important characters, with flashbacks from the 1970’s as well, one era of the last century that’s not yet been explored much by the currently released transmedia.
Revelation is, once again, written very well, courtesy of Layton Green’s style and pacing. While the convoluted puzzles continue, and at this point some of them do start being a bit excessive, the action and key explanations keep on coming at a steady pace. Various plot points are finally better explained, while others are still waiting for the yet unknown date book 3 of the trilogy. Not as fresh or surprising as Genesis, but Revelation is still a very solid sequel. That’s how far I’ll go to avoid major spoilers about the first book.
Score: 7 out of 10
The future of Unknown 9
This is everything that is currently available from the Unknown 9 universe. Naturally, Layton Green’s Genesis trilogy of books is yet to conclude with the third episode, the Torment comic has only just begun, and the Out of Sight podcast has seen a satisfying conclusion, yet the brilliant format in which it’s presented in makes it easy for future seasons to appear. Shortly after publishing this article, we also concluded our thorough review of Unknown 9: Awakening, the main event of this intriguing connected universe that should, hopefully, kickstart a second wave of stories. We already have confirmation of at least 2 other upcoming web series… and perhaps something more. Every piece of media, be it the books, the comic or the podcast, featured some weird puzzles that, when decoded, teased a handful of things, too. We’ll see where all that goes.
Of course, realistically speaking, the longevity of this project likely stems from the success of Unknown 9: Awakening. If it becomes a critical and/or commercial success, it’s easy to imagine these additional stories gaining more traction. So far, what’s been released has had very muted hype – granted, the game was only revealed with a proper gameplay trailer earlier this year. Per a Gamer Industry article from a couple months ago, the game has been rebooted sometime after its initial reveal, with the cross-media projects having been put on pause until the game’s release. That time has finally arrived, and we’ll see how the future of it all looks like. There’s even plans for other videogames, but again, that clearly will largely depend on the performance of Awakening.
Regardless of the future, our present is bright enough: due to the talent of the artists involved, the various already released projects are of high quality, entertaining and fascinating. They all give us vastly different looks into the same interconnected universe, each with their own cast, locations and style. The ideas and themes aren’t the most unique ones for sure, with a lot of them already done before in many pieces of sci-fi fiction, but let’s face it: the scene of AAA videogame scene does need something new from time to time, and Reflective Entertainment and Bandai Namco’s Unknown 9 is something new, and for now it’s been absolutely worth it to me to dig into it all.
