Unknown 9: Awakening is a wobbly start to the franchise, but there's potential here
Reflector Entertainment's debut effort combines moments of sublime gameplay with dated game design and visuals
Review: Unknown 9: Awakening
Developed by Reflector Entertainment and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment
Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
There were moments during my playthrough when I was reminded of the early 2000s. Having said that, I should probably elaborate on the two main reasons I was reminded of that time. First, it was around then that I was to take the most important (until then, anyway) exams of my life. As it turned out, I was often left — through no one’s fault but my own, I suppose — cramming until the 11th hour. And the very important learning about myself I gleaned at that point was: I do not respond well to massive floods of new information. And second, it was because I had just gotten hold of my first Sony console — a PlayStation 2. We’ll return to this one a little later on.
Unknown 9: Awakening launches on October 18 and is the first game in the Unknown 9 franchise that has gradually been taking shape. You can find out more about it in the Qun interview with creative director Christophe Rossignol at your leisure. For now, let’s get right into the game.
Lordy, lordy, all this lore
As referenced briefly above, information dumps aren’t things I enjoy having to deal with in the course of regular life, never mind in a videogame. Unfortunately, Unknown 9: Awakening inundates you with reams of information and exposition right from the get-go, and it gets things off to a less-than-ideal start. The developers likely realised that most players will be coming into the game cold, ie without having read the graphic novels or listened to the podcast, which provide a great deal more context. As such, they’d need to be brought up to speed in the shortest time possible.
In most cases, this exercise in situating players within the story occurs by means of an opening cutscene or some scrolling onscreen text. That’s not Unknown 9: Awakening’s approach, which sees a fairly important NPC escort protagonist Haroona through the prologue. Unfortunately, and instead of serving as an introduction, the constant dropping of alien terms, names and concepts turns into a rather hefty primer. While the gameplay tutorial part was helpful, I was pretty relieved to see the back of the prologue and its constant barrage of information. This relief was short-lived, however, because I found that nearly every section of the game featured an NPC or two (sometimes more) who would see fit to bury me under stacks of lore, background or other miscellaneous information. I should point out here though that it wasn’t the writing I had a problem with (that was pretty good), but the content.
I’d hoped this would ease off by the time I was making progress through the second half of the game, but there was no such luck. A major positive, however, was the presence of a well-organised codex (in the form of a journal) that meant I was, from time to time, able to take my eyes off some of the lore being shared and rely on the journal to bring me up to speed. And yet, despite the two-and-a-bit paragraphs above, I do understand why the developers may have decided to resort to this sort of information-bombing. As I’ve noted already, Unknown 9: Awakening marks the mainstream birth of a new franchise. Now with the game acting as the glue that holds it all together, it was imperative to quickly situate players within the world, and simultaneously, unleash them on the world and all the secrets it holds. In my view, a few cutscenes that actually showed events (rather than people telling Haroona about them) may have been a more immersive and accessible alternative.
Step right up
Unknown 9: Awakening is a third-person action-adventure title spanning around 16 hours that features secret societies, Quaestors who can jump into the hidden dimension known as the Fold, special powers and all manner of twists and turns. For a deeper dive in to the background of the Unknown 9 universe, check out this helpful site, because there’s a lot to unpack. The series is set in an alternate universe and across all sorts of timelines, and according to my best estimations, the game inhabits an era that appears to be equivalent to our universe’s mid-20th Century. But I’m not sure.
At the heart of it, the game has you, as Haroona, embarking on a revenge mission that turns into a far bigger deal. She’ll meet a handful of interesting NPCs, and credit must go to the developers for the world-building that happens when we get to experience Unknown 9: Awakening’s world rather than just hear about it. Along the way, you’ll be traversing a variety of terrains — deserts, ruins, villages, caves and more. Our protagonist will run, climb, crouch and walk during her journey. This is where we encounter a major fly in the ointment because while she can jump, it’s very context-specific. She cannot jump up obstacles in the normal course of the game, but there are certain gaps across which the game triggers an animation that depicts her jumping. And this was the crux of my major issue with traversal. It’s a largely linear game, but it’s made to feel more ‘on-rails’ by the fact that moving around is such a stilted exercise. What do I mean by that? Well, you’re allowed to walk and run just fine, but if you have to hop onto a higher platform, squeeze through a gap or jump across a gap, an animation is triggered. This reduces the world to a set of activity boxes separated by a preloaded animation.
But it’s when you jump into battle that things take a turn for the better. Much better, I’d say. Combat starts off basic: Quick attack, heavy attack and dodge are your friends. But then, as a Quaestor, Haroona brings other skills to the table. From being able to use your powers to pull and push (that closely resemble force pulls and pushes from the Star Wars universe) enemies and engaging in all sorts of stealth mechanics (like distracting enemies with noise or setting off explosions remotely), to the power of stepping (being able to possess the body of an enemy and make them do your bidding), your palette of combat is suddenly full of a variety of colours.
It became apparent in my conversation with the game’s creative director (here’s that link again) that one of the main things the Reflector team was excited about players checking out, was stepping. And I’m pleased to report that their enthusiasm wasn’t unfounded. After the stuttering experience that is traversal, combat feels like a breath of fresh air: The interplay of stealth, melee combat and stepping is smooth, fluid and extremely addictive. One of Unknown 9: Awakening’s greatest delights is the tools it places in Haroona’s hands to thin out a herd of baddies without so much as having to throw a punch. I’d go as far as to compare the thrill of strategically laying waste to seven or eight antagonists with the feeling I got stringing up and incapacitating numerous goons without so much as being detected, in the Arkham games.
Another thing I quite enjoyed was that no matter how much you level up Haroona’s abilities, you will never feel overpowered in melee combat. That’s not how the makers want you to play the game. Instead, they want you to step into this guy here, and use him to smash a gas cylinder, which will in turn injure a couple of other thugs. In the meantime, you will have stepped into a shooter and lined up a coup de grâce for one of those injured chaps, and so on. It’s quite remarkable how these sequences flow, while non-combat sections feel stodgy.
A few bum notes
Unknown 9: Awakening’s failings cannot be distilled down to just one issue because there isn’t one clear problem I can point at; instead, there’s a number of little issues that could’ve used a bit of fine-tuning/improvement. The absence of a photo mode is understandable given this isn’t a high-budget AAA game, but the absence of a graphics mode (fidelity versus performance) is quite bizarre. In any case, the game feels like it ticks along at 30 fps with a couple of framerate drops along the way. It becomes less noticeable over time, but is quite a shock when you first encounter it.
Staying on the visuals, the graphics are extremely inconsistent: Gorgeous lighting and scenery stands alongside egregious pop-in textures and some fairly ordinary character models — particularly their faces. There are moments, for instance, where Haroona doesn’t quite look like British-Asian actress Anya Chalotra who essays the role. With the exception of Luther Goodwin and Buchra (Haroona’s companions), most of the faces leave a fair bit to be desired. Speaking of the characters, while a section of the voice acting sounds like it was recorded in a small room, the writing (when it’s not busy with laying thick and heavy exposition on the player) is quite snappy and entertaining.
And then we have the recurring jank that rears its ugly head every so often. Interactive objects will sometimes require you to walk circles around them until they, in their infinite wisdom (presumably) deem you worthy of interacting with them — which is when the triangle button logo (on PlayStation 5) will show up. The general sense of imprecision when you are doing anything — to a tiny extent, even combat — is frustrating and throws you out of any sense of immersion you may have been experiencing. Lastly, while I enjoyed the way Unknown 9: Awakening uses verticality to create variety and challenges in its levels, I found the overall design to be far too basic, and designed to draw you down a path. The very slightest bit of exploration is usually enough to find you most collectibles.
Back to a more exciting time
Before we were awash with waves and waves of bloated open-world titles, games used to be built on smaller budgets and with a more focussed approach. This is the sort of approach Reflector appears to have taken with Unknown 9: Awakening. It is therefore useful to think of this game less in the vein of a semi-open 2024 game than a linear and focussed adventure from the PlayStation 2 (I told you we’d be discussing this again) era or like the first Uncharted game.
Of course, this doesn’t negate its flaws — of which it has a considerable number as stated above — but it is by no means a ‘broken game’. It’s heartening to see a studio with the ambition to try something different in this generation of sequels, remasters and reboots. This was what the PlayStation 2 and even PlayStation 3 eras were all about: New ideas and concepts turned into games in a sustainable manner. Sure, there’s little unique or ‘never done before’ about the Unknown 9 universe, but then there’s nothing really unique about dragons, nudity and gore. That didn’t seem to hurt that franchise.
I view Unknown 9: Awakening in the final analysis as a wobbly first entry in the series. It is neither polished nor innovative enough to be considered among the finest games of the year, but it’s also nowhere near being in the bottom half of this year’s releases. This is a safe outing that prioritises its centrepiece, which is stepping, and hopes you will be enamoured enough to stick around and discover a bit more about the universe. Maybe that will take you down the rabbit hole of the admittedly high-quality Unknown 9: Out of Sight podcasts, and then just maybe, there’ll be enough interest for a second game in the series. For now, a bunch of Unknown 9: Awakening’s shortcomings can be patched, and they probably will be. And then you should definitely give it a shot. It may not change your world, but it will give you a focussed and entertaining experience that is well worth its Rs 2,999 price.
Game reviewed on PlayStation 5. Review code provided by publisher
It's good to see new games coming out that are based on different cultures. Putting aside all the controversies, this one has a ton of technical issues that need to be addressed. The reviews coming in from both professional critics and regular players indicate that the graphics are dated and the gameplay is linear.
From the videos that I have watched, the main character does seem massively overpowered. She is probably all of 90lbs but she throws people around and takes bullets without flinching. She can mow through five men faster than Conan the Barbarian---even without magic or special abilities. The enemies are all dumb as rocks and pose no challenges.
The non-enemy NPC characters are just rooted in place, almost like trees. Unlike older games like the Witcher 3 and Skyrim, most of the humans in the virtual world lack any form of dynamic behavior. As a result the player is relegated to walking through a landscape of static figures, waiting to encounter ineffective enemies who don't pose much of a threat. Even packs of enemies are not hard to deal with.
The devs will have to redo many of the fundamentals. Good luck to them.