The release of Unknown 9: Awakening promises to launch a transmedia event in a new sci-fi/fantasy world. While it’s nice to find a risky new IP among the glut of remakes, Reflector Entertainment and publisher Bandai Namco’s third-person action-adventure game is a hasty patchwork of ideas that never adhere, further troubled by stuttery performance and imprecise action. Aspects of the project do prove effective – the voice acting is generally strong throughout, and the possession mechanics are interesting in theory – but Unknown 9: Awakening's best ideas never clear the landing.

Montreal studio Reflector – now a direct subsidiary of Bandai Namco – proves ambitious to a fault with this project, launching an interconnected narrative meant as a lead-in into scripted podcasts, comics, and other media. It's all in an effort to establish the wider Unknown 9 Universe, which centers on a group of immortals who secretly influence human progress and Earth’s destiny, with some folks catching on to their mysterious machinations.

Stepping Into The Unknown 9: Awakening World

Mind Controlling Knuckleheads From The Shadows

One such individual is Haroona (voiced by Anya Chalotra, who played Yennefer in Netflix's The Witcher adaptation), a warrior disciple and truth-seeker known as a “Quaester” trained to invoke Umbric abilities linked to the parallel ghostly realm of The Fold. An intro level sees her exploring and battling thugs alongside elder mentor Reika, channeling The Fold into melee combat, even wielding it to momentarily control their bodies.

Umbric powers are the primary hook in Unknown 9: Awakening and empower Haroona with a temporary invisible cloak, a wall-hack-like "peering" ability, and other basic tricks. Haroona can eventually control three hypnotized enemies sequentially, setting up cascades of damage as they attack each other or trigger nearby environmental hazards.

After Reika disappears during a Quaester mission, Haroona sets off on a globetrotting quest to liberate her, eventually teaming up with a gunslinger named Luthor and his Leap Year Society crew on their airship base The Morning Star. Their journey will shine new light on the secrets of The Fold, the Unknown 9 themselves, and Haroona’s emerging destiny.

"Stepping" Is A Cool Ability, Until It Runs Out

Unknown 9: Awakening Features Limited Combat Options and All-Or-Nothing Stealth

Unknown 9: Awakening has expansive plans, but the gameplay remains frustratingly grounded. Your time is split between navigating linear levels and fending off squads of Ascendants, tech-powered PMCs employed by posh villain Vincent Lichter. There’s a perfunctory push towards stealth action, but it’s always boxed in by tired combat tropes that feel dustier now in 2024.

Fights center on basic melee attacks and Haroona’s Umbric abilities, but her mind-swapping “stepping” powers are strictly limited by tokens that regenerate after doling out damage. In other words, Haroona’s hands are mostly tied after stepping through a few Ascendants and firing off powers, though she can attempt a few stealth kills before just taking everyone on all at once.

There’s no corpse-hiding or any sophisticated stealth systems to play with here, and large fights quickly devolve into chaos with rudimentary AI on both sides. Regenerated tokens let Haroona step into enemies mid-battle, though, so it’s often a matter of just keeping her alive to get a few hits in, stepping freely into a grunt, rinse, repeat.

Stepping is a fun mechanic in theory – evoking the delightful Possession skill from the Dishonored franchise – but mind-controlled enemies only have one unique action apiece, creating limited opportunities to trigger elaborate cascades of dominoes. Like much of Unknown 9: Awakening’s gameplay and story, it’s a one-note concept that fails to evolve.

Painted Ledges Aplenty, No Actual Platforming

Poor Level Design And Way Too Many Slow Crevices

Character movement fares no better. Haroona cannot jump, so any climbing or leaping between surfaces is done automatically when positioned on a painted ledge or textured wall. Countless tight level-loading crevices to squeeze through and numerous other third-person action-adventure game tropes consistently drain excitement from Unknown 9: Awakening's exploration.

There is the occasional fork in the path leading to lore item pickups, skill-increasing orbs, and Fold-hidden boons which boost health or mana, but there isn't a single surprigrade in the bunch. This is one of the most rigid and uninteresting skill trees in recent memory, mostly adding nominal buffs to basic abilities, and I barely paused to unlock anything after the game's halfway point.

Since the combat never meaningfully evolves and there are no weapons to wield or unique methods of engagement to learn, I struggled to recognize Haroona's growth or role as the central hero. It speaks to the game's crisis of identity, exemplified in an early scene where Unknown 9: Awakening awkwardly empties a bucket of unknown NPCs onto the floor, then tasks you with befriending them on the airship to inject some personal stakes into the story. Who are these people? Why should I engage them?

A Beautiful Airship, Squandered

For All Of Its Globetrotting, Unknown 9: Awakening Lacks A Strong Sense of Place

With an airship and a diverse team of characters, I expected Unknown 9: Awakening to offer a strong sense of place and geography, a ragtag crew soaring and adventuring through various continents. Instead, traveling to a new locale prompts a drab B-roll-styled cinematic right out of a PlayStation 1 FMV, with The Morning Star drifting past nondescript clouds before Haroona unceremoniously materializes on a new level.

Luthor and Buchra are the only crew mates you'll regularly see on missions, leaving the rest dawdling on the airship as fountains of optional lore. To have this ornate massive zeppelin – easily the most detailed and interesting environment found in the entire game – and just use it as an NPC hub with characters you’re meant to automatically adore and investigate is a tragic misstep.

The partner AI in the game is utterly vacant, mostly acting as unpredictable moving obstacles when you’re trying to hide, or daftly ignoring the Ascendants attacking around them. They’re also happy to cycle through a few stock barks after the fight, often praising themselves when they didn’t contribute, and always with the same few voice lines.

Final Thoughts & Review Score

Unmistakable Ambition That Widely Misses The Mark

It's tempting to view Unknown 9: Awakening as a third-person adventure from a bygone era, but it struggles to be relevant, even as a pure throwback. Its story is overburdened with tropes, its gameplay often repetitive and awkward, and the rare occasion it sees fit to trot out a “puzzle,” the very term demands scare quotes. The game's stepping mechanic should carry everything on its shoulders, but it quickly becomes routine, and never smartly pairs with the stealth.

We spent approximately 15 hours with Unknown 9: Awakening from start to credits. There is no New Game+, but missable lore items in each level and special combat objectives fill out the 38 total achievements.

There are only two real boss fights to be found, with each fought twice and in mostly the same way, which grimly recalls The Callisto Protocol. Beyond that, Unknown 9: Awakening frequently blunders any narrative opportunities and resorts to common clichés: the meaningless sacrifice, the obvious betrayal, the "legacy of the chosen." The final level finds Haroona and a companion traveling through countless enemy camps, absent of any unique surprises, as if the game's just running out the clock.

There’s unmistakable ambition here, this wider matrix of interconnected, time-warping stories to be told and experienced by a diverse cast, but this first foray widely misses the mark. Absent further context from the additional podcast and comics, Unknown 9: Awakening is just hard to recommend, with players left to meet the game on its own alone. It makes for a tedious stealth/action adventure that always plays safe, saves its most interesting vistas for the absolute end, and can’t ever decide on what it perceives as its strengths. Neither can we.

Screen Rant was provided with a PC code for the purposes of this review.