Unknown 9: Awakening is stepping into the spotlight, but ultimately fails to impress

When Unknown 9: Awakening was revealed at Gamescom 2020, it wasn’t quite clear what Reflector Entertainment’s adventure would actually involve. The teaser showed a young girl, Haroona, being chased through the streets of Calcutta before unleashing a magical ability that freezes her pursuers in their tracks. It looked beautiful but didn’t tell us anything about the gameplay.

In the three years since, Reflector has remained tight-lipped about Awakening. But other Unknown 9 media has gradually surfaced, offering various entry points to the series’ lore, called the “Storyworld.” You can learn more about it through Unknown 9’s podcasts, blogs, novels, comic books, or its upcoming web series. The Unknown 9 world is being touted as a transmedia experience, and Awakening is its main entry point. 

Dot Esports was privy to an early look at Unknown 9: Awakening during a recent hands-off presentation, and I have to say, I’m less excited now than I was after the teaser trailer.

 Into The Fold

Unknown 9: Awakening follows Haroona, played by The Witcher’s Anya Chalotra, who’s now a grown woman on a globe-trotting revenge mission following the death of her mentor at the hands of his former protégé. As a Quaestor, Haroona can access a hidden dimension called The Fold that lets her use magical powers. This makes her a target of the Ascendants, a secret society hunting down a group of immortals with powerful secret abilities, known as the Unknown 9, so they can take the power and wield it themselves.

It’s a lot to wrap your head around, but if you think the story is tricky to keep up with as a player, imagine being on the team trying to craft it within a canon narrative across a whole universe of media. 

“It is an interesting challenge to tackle,” head of production at Reflector, Jean-François Deschamps, told us during a roundtable interview following the presentation. “We all have our own narrative design team. We also have a team that’s in charge of the overall structure of the universe itself. […] They are doing the main core stories of the universe and ensuring that those connections are made and when we see some divergence then we open discussions.”

While this is one heck of a web to weave, it does mean Awakening’s story is strictly linear, so don’t expect to be making any hard-hitting choices. 

Stepping out

The gameplay presentation was short but enough to get a feel for what Reflector is going for with Awakening. 

While you can charge in guns (or magic) blazing, engaging in close-quarters combat with your adversaries using your hands or mystical skills, the combat loop primarily revolves around something Reflector calls “active stealth.” Haroona can use her abilities to interact with the environment and take out enemies, with certain interactions causing knock-on effects. For example, Haroona can blow up a flaming lantern, making the fire spread to a nearby generator that explodes and kills anyone unlucky enough to be lurking nearby. 

But the primary and most unique combat mechanic in Awakening is Stepping. Haroona can possess an enemy, letting you step into them and use their specific archetype abilities to take out other foes. The intention is for players to chain these possessions to create combos. During the gameplay presentation, we watched as Haroona stepped into the body of a sniper atop a tower, then used his rifle to shoot an enemy looming near her own body, before hopping into a second sniper further away to take out another nearby adversary. Later, we watched as she stepped into a tankier foe and made him throw himself into a fire pit.

While the Stepping mechanic sounds interesting, for the most part, Awakening’s combat doesn’t look like anything new. Stepping is cool initially, but after watching several combos, it quickly loses its luster. 

The Assassin’s Creed influence is clear in Awakening, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given Reflector is made up of several Ubisoft Montreal alumni, including Deschamps. But this sort of gameplay loop feels too familiar—too overdone. All things considered, Stepping just doesn’t seem unique enough to break that mold.

Blending reality and myth

Where Awakening piqued my interest was in its setting. While Reflector’s adventure sees you traversing the desert, jungle, cities, and even The Fold over several years starting in 1912, the game is primarily influenced by Ancient Indian mythology.

To stay respectful and authentic in its portrayal of real mythology (albeit in a fantasy world), Reflector gave Anya Charlota the liberty to portray the character as she saw fit, while implementing feedback from a consultant, a focus group, and a quality assurance team based in India. “We believe we hit a really good balance of new things and being grounded and respectful of what people would expect,” Deschamps says.

It’s a shame, then, that you won’t be able to wander freely in Awakening’s world. While there are collectibles to find and puzzles to solve, Haroona is confined to a linear path. 

The gateway

Following its teaser trailer, I don’t know what I expected Unknown 9: Awakening to be, but it wasn’t this. While I’ve only been privy to a short snippet of gameplay, what I saw didn’t leave me excited for more.

Awakening has a heavy burden to bear—that of the whole Unknown 9 media universe. While the game isn’t the sole carrier of this weight, it’s no doubt intended to be the gateway. Right now, I’m worried Awakening’s overfamiliar gameplay and linear story will buckle under the pressure.

Unknown 9: Awakening is coming in “summer 2024” to PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.