Quebec-based Reflector Entertainment and Bandai Namco, alongside various authors across different media, have for the last couple of years given life to the Unknown 9 shared universe, an ambitious project aiming to create a vast and mysterious world for videogames, comics, books, podcasts and more to expand upon. Meant as one of the primary entry points to this fictional world is Unknown 9: Awakening, a world-seeing, reality-shattering, triple-A third-person action-adventure game. After playing through it all on Xbox Series X, here’s our review!
I am a keeper of lost knowledge and do not concern myself with modern affairs.
There are two important things to know before diving into the world of Unknown 9: Awakening. The first is that you can keep it as simple as you want. While there are several other projects in the Unknown 9 universe, every single story, including this videogame, is meant as separate, cohesive, and standalone storylines. The narrative in the game, just as it is in the books or the comic, is meant to be understandable without needing to consume every element of this transmedia project. The main elements of the world’s lore, the rules of the various sci-fi elements, and certain recurrent characters’ backgrounds can be surmised with what’s being offered by the product; in this case, the videogame.
But let’s say the world of Unknown 9 does fascinate you, be it because you want to dive into this game with more knowledge or, at a later time, specifically because you enjoyed the game’s world and lore, and so you would like to dive into it more. Well, shortly before this review went live, we also published a handy summary of reviews and facts about the Unknown 9 universe, wrapping up the currently released books, comic issue, and podcast, and looking at the already announced future projects as well. If this reality-bending fictional universe intrigues you, I can warmly suggest reading that article as well, either before or after checking out this review for the Unknown 9: Awakening video game. To very shortly summarize: as of now, there are the first two books of the globe-throtting Genesis book trilogy by Layton Green, the almost superhero-esque comic book Torment, the paranormal podcast Out of Sight, and of course, the Unknown 9: Awakening videogame. More should be coming, after the game’s release.
There are also two upcoming web series, an interactive encyclopedia called Nexus, of course, the continuation of the Genesis book trilogy, the Torment comic series going forward, and perhaps even more – but that’s a story for another day, and plans could even change. Whatever your starting point in this journey is, however, you will find out important elements of the Unknown 9 universe, such as how the mysterious alternate reality The Fold works, who are the Leap Year Society, what’s their beef with The Ascendants, on top of various important characters’ backgrounds. As said, each story stands tall on its own, but together they form a rich fictional universe – one far deeper than the frankly generic “Unknown 9” name would suggest.
But let’s game, shall we?
This is a review for Unknown 9: Awakening, however, so let’s get back to that. Our story is set in the 1910s, making it de facto the story that’s set farthest back in time out of the ones released in the Unknown 9 universe so far. The protagonist is Haroona, a young adult from a mountain region in India – she’s played by actress Anya Chalotra, whom you may remember as Jennifer from The Witcher series on Netflix. Her mentor Reika helps with understand and control her bizarre connection to The Fold, a strange parallel reality of sorts that exists within the world we see, but that only a few can even see, let alone explore. There are a handful of gifted people who can interact with The Fold to an extent, or who have been impacted by it in some way, but Haroona is easily one of the most promising ones of the bunch: she can see hidden things in our world by accessing The Fold, extract powers for combat from there, and so forth. She is a Quaestor, the name that’s usually used for people with such capacities – though other terms like Diver will be heard and explained in this rich universe.
She and Reika are unfortunate enough to cross paths quite immediately into the game with the titular bad guy Vincent – who turns out, is the leader of the Ascendants, the splinter group from the Leap Year Society. Both of these factions’ larger ideologies, philosophies, and ideas for our world can be understood throughout the game, and even more so via the extended media projects of the Unknown 9 universe – though, at first, Haroona is not interested in any of that. In front of her, Vincent seemingly murders Reika after a fierce battle, which sets Haroona on a path of revenge. A path that will take her across multiple locations across the globe, including India, Portugal, and Mauritania. And it’s a journey in which she will cross paths with members of the Leap Year Society and the Ascendants alike.
As far as I’m concerned, I find the story in Unknown 9: Awakening a bit hit-and-miss. As said, it’s set in a vast and rich universe, and the game takes us through various cool locales, kinda like an Uncharted game would. As we explore the optional paths, read notes, and listen to the dialogue of random guards and whatnot, it’s possible to put together many details of an intriguing world, one filled with otherworldly places, crazy steampunk-ish technology, massive conspiracies, cult-like secret groups and so forth. On the other hand, the actual plot of the game is fairly formulaic, and while some late-game revelations and confrontations are enjoyable, I’ve found the plot of, say, the books to be stronger. The second half of the game does feature some awesome locations and some nice story beats as well, with the worldbuilding becoming more intriguing as the story goes on, but it still all seems quite familiar in terms of video game story and narrative style.
Folding enemies
In terms of gameplay, a lot in Unknown 9: Awakening is borrowed from the popular third-person action-adventure titles of the last two decades or so. The exploration is done in semi-linear areas, with a lot of barricades, a handful of invisible walls, and limited paths ensuring our straightforward progression. As said, exploring alternate paths or looking well into the corners can lead to extra collectibles, notes, and even extra skill points to spend on our skill tree. To make finding these missable objects easier, Haroona can use The Fold to “see beyond” our reality, allowing her to look into a direction and see the vital force of allies and foes alike, objects that can be interacted with, and so on. It’s a very videogame-y way of approaching The Fold, as I don’t recall the books or podcast mentioning anyone who gets climbable surfaces and collectible note pages highlighted in there.
But accessing The Fold greatly helps in combat too. Haroona isn’t a mythical warrior by any means, and as such, she will have to use stealth a lot. Most combat sequences boil down to taking down a whole base of armed enemies, with certain tricks that wouldn’t feel out of place in an Assassin’s Creed game – but with The Fold as a twist. Silent take-downs borrow energy from the other world. Baiting enemies into going to a certain spot isn’t done by throwing a rock but via a wave of energy. Objects like explosive barrels can be detonated telekinetically from a distance – again, thanks Fold! Haroona can even turn invisible for a couple of seconds by pressing down on the D-pad – an absolute godsend when things go wrong. Enemy AI is not very smart, but at least their soldiers come prepared with Quaestor-detecting machines, multiple tough warriors with devastating melee or ranged weapons, and they come in numbers. It’s quite hard to beat a whole camp face-on, so it’s always better to, at the very least, trim the number of foes drastically before going Commando on them.
If it does come to actual combat, Haroona can certainly throw punches, once again powered by her forays into The Fold. She can create explosions of energy around her by smashing the ground, pulling enemies closer via her psychic skills, hitting them with energy to paralyze them temporarily, and so forth. Easily the most unique power of hers, however, allows her to literally “jump into” enemies – this means that, for a brief time, she can control an enemy AI for a couple of seconds, forcing them to go where she wants to, shoot straight into an explosive canister for a fiery kamikaze attack, or simply turn them against their allies. As the skill tree expands, these jumps can even be chained together, allowing Haroona to create a domino effect of enemies attacking one another with devastating effects. This move even de facto freezes time, so it can be used both in stealth moments and actual tense combat. Some of the later enemies have quite the large health, but Haroona’s powers also keep improving via the skill tree – still, some of the later combat encounters can be rather tanky if stealth fails.
Oh, the humanity!
As said, while the level designs tend to be quite linear, some of the gameplay does get some cool changes from time to time. Different companions will join us in some missions, depending on the story beats involved. Boss battles, turret sequences, and even small puzzles break up the pace a little bit. At various points throughout the campaign, the player will spend time on the Morning Star, a giant blimp used by Leap Year Society members who, currently, share a similar goal to Haroona, creating a nice strategic alliance. This is a small hub that can be explored fairly freely, with stairways, many different cabins, and so forth that open up more and more as the game goes on, too. Perhaps this is also the most peaceful moment to try out one of Haroona’s costumes, though the cosmetic changes these offers have quite a bit of limitations. First of all, outside of buying the more expensive editions of the game and registering on the game’s website, there’s barely any cosmetics to unlock. And second, these skins require the game to load the previous checkpoint to be applied – something that’s quite unusual to see in 2024, and a choice that seems to hint at some technical limitations.
Speaking of that, it’s hard to shake off the feeling that Unknown 9: Awakening isn’t quite the technical marvel. No reason to compare the graphics, animations, and such to behemoths made by Rockstar or Naughty Dog, who have about 10 times as many people on certain projects as the folks at Reflector Entertainment do (let alone the budget). But even compared to a lot of contemporaries, their AAA debut is lagging. While the worlds themselves offer a decent amount of detail and solid landscapes, most of the assets are a bit lacking. Character models, their facial animations, and so forth. Their body movement was motion captured, at least in cutscenes, but they still feel a little unprecise and not always well plastered over the game’s world. There are many noticeable hidden loading screens such as tight passages between rocks. I’d say much of this likely boils down to the cross-gen nature of the title, with Unknown 9: Awakening available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 as well, consoles released a whopping 11 years ago now. But even then, the graphics hardly impress, and there are even framerate drops, pop-ins, and occasional visual glitches from time to time.
Many aspects of the game, in truth, feel like they could have been iterated upon more. Stealth is serviceable enough, but with limited size areas, repetitive level geometry, and dumb AI it quickly becomes formulaic. The use of The Fold is fantastic for jumping into enemies’ shoes or turning invisible, but then it’s also used for takedowns, distracting enemies, or detonating explosives from a distance – things that you could already do in many other games, just without any strange abilities to boot and with standard weaponry instead. It feels like the game’s strange tech and lore are still mainly used to do things that aren’t at all new, with the combat system once again boiling down to dodging, parrying, and then finding the right moment to hit back with the right punch or a well-timed skill activation. Even the plot, while featuring a few nice twists and turns especially in the latter half, feels ultimately a bit safe, with not that many memorable characters or setpieces to boot.
Should I?
I finished the game in about 15 hours on the normal difficulty (I think – the in-game counter is busted and the Xbox club wasn’t live yet during my review window, so I lack an actual counter), taking the world in slowly, exploring where I expected to find something and finding already a majority of the collectibles to begin with. 4 different difficulties exist, with the highest ones offering a real tough challenge, and players can always go back to replay missions to find some elusive collectibles, notes and whatnot. The game’s rich lore is greatly expanded by consulting hidden material like that, so keep an eye out. Haroona even has an interactive journal in the game, which offers insight into various elements of the Unknown 9 universe, including hints and details about events and characters from other transmedia projects. For example, you’ll find hints about Ettore Majorana and Lazari, whom you’ll encounter in the Genesis books and the Out of Sight podcast respectively. There’s no tacked-on multiplayer, a horde mode, or anything beyond the campaign at this point. With a reduced pricepoint of 49.99 USD/EUR, I’d say that’s a more than adequate value proposition.
So where does all that leave us with Unknown 9: Awakening? The game’s world is rich in interesting lore and details from a universe that, while hardly reinventing any known formula of fiction, is a very enjoyable and engaging ride. The game puts down a lot of the foundation of this intriguing world, but the execution is certainly uneven. A hit-and-miss presentation, a gameplay loop that hints at excellence but often seems content with being rather average, and a plot that is a lot more straightforward than the Unknown 9’s rich lore would suggest – though it does have its moments. Still, I’d rather take a game that tries to reach for the stars and ends up being a bit flawed, over a polished but safe and derivative game. Even more so when it comes to a plot-heavy adventure game. And in truth, I had a good time with the game, with the end credits rolling at a time I wasn’t at all tired of the game’s formula, aside from a handful of combat sequences with a lot of tricky enemies coming at me at the same time maybe.
In the end, I enjoyed the first video game of the Unknown 9 universe, and I sure hope it won’t be the last, as I wanna keep going back to this vast fictional world. And while I want to applaud Reflector Entertainment and Bandai Namco for trying something different, perhaps they stuck a little too close to the action-adventure videogame genre’s tropes, in an attempt to better appeal to the masses. Still, it’s a game that has some good ideas and terrific lore, one expanded upon by all the transmedia products out there. Fans of action-adventure games should take this leap of faith into The Fold and give Unknown 9: Awakening an honest shot, with its budget price that should help with pulling the trigger over such an… Unknown quantity.
Unknown 9: Awakening
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Part of a rich and ambitious cross-media lore
- The abilities and quirks related to the Fold are awesome
- Plenty of original ideas
- A solid campaign length without too much padding
- Budget pricing helps
CONS
- Technically unimpressive
- Narrative is a bit uneven
- Many gameplay ideas are a bit derivative
- Nothing much to do after the end credits
Nice review, thanks!
I’ll keep an eye on this game, never heard of it nor the universe before. Sounds cool.
Will I understand anything that’s going on if I haven’t played Unknown 1 through 8?
Ba dum tsssh
I have to find and play Expedition 1-32.
I didn’t know it was part of a transmedia project.
I’m keeping an eye on this. Seems interesting.
Was this based on an existing book series? Or the whole project is new? Seems a bit overconfident to plan out a whole transmedia universe before they know if anyone even likes the game. I’m not sure what the hook is supposed to be unless you’re an Anya Chalotra superfan.