Rude Awakening

Unknown 9: Awakening serves as a gateway to the Unknown 9 Universe. However, did this really help the franchise? Read on...

Unknown 9: Awakening
Rating: 1.5/5
Developer and Publisher: 
Reflector Entertainment, Bandai Namco
Platform: PC, XBS, PS5
Price: Rs 2,999

In Unknown 9, you play as a Bengali girl called Haroona depicted by Anya Chalotra of Witcher fame. The game is based in an alternate timeline where certain individuals can tap in to a mysterious power called the Fold. Haroona starts off as a street urchin who is saved or rather discovered by Reika, a Queastor (someone who can use the fold). Reika takes you on a journey that serves as the game tutorial. During this journey you will learn how to use your powers, learn stealth and use combat techniques to murder several soldiers. Know when I say murder, I mean brutally extracting and destroying the souls of your enemies.

Revenge is introduced early in the game when immediately after the introductory journey—Reika is murdered by the villain Vincent Lichter in a cut scene. He then shows mercy to Haroona despite her murderous rampage and lets her run away. For his kindness, Haroona spends most of the game plotting revenge and searching for Vincent.

The gameplay involves mostly moving from one location to the next and killing all the enemies in that area, then being let into the next area to do the same. There are environmental puzzles like crevices to scrape through and not-so-hidden walls to smash. There is plenty of climbing and jumping around also involved. Occasionally, there will be a puzzle that even a five-year-old could solve. The stealth in the game is very bad. It’s a game of hide-and-seek as you give away your position when you attack to kill. As soon as you shroud yourself with your powers, you become invisible for a while and can take cover in the tall grass—the minute you do this, and soldiers forget that you were running around killing them and go about their daily lives.

As far as combat skills go, Haroona’s do not seem very sophisticated—will find yourself relying on stealth to get by. Like any good game, this one has a skill tree as well, the skills include a lot of skill that you shouldn’t bother with because they are useless during gameplay. That said not every skill is a failure I quite enjoyed the Stepping power which lets you take over the enemy and use them like a meat puppet. It adds a nice edge to the otherwise run-of-the-mill gameplay. Everything in this game feels like it’s been borrowed from somewhere else, and there seems to be a lot of love for Assassins Creed and Uncharted in the developer Reflector Entertainment’s core team. 

There are also some choices in the game that I just don’t get. One example, is that Haroona is I am assuming Bengali, and in the town as well, people speak to each other in Bengali. Then why is it all the main characters speak only in English, and why do they get English subtitles where as the town folk don’t get English subtitles for the things they are saying in Bengali. If you observe a little more closely there are a few other things that will start to annoy you.

Unknown 9 is a story-driven game, and many of these unfold in cut scenes. This game is actually part of a larger release that involved graphic novels, scripted podcasts, books, and even a web series. However, if the level of execution is this bad in the game, I shudder to think what the other mediums would be like. The actual world-building is pretty good. However, you need to complete over 10 hours of mind-numbing grind to get anywhere close to it. The pacing of the game is completely off, and I feel it is because the developers were more focused on getting people to see their vision rather than building a fun game everyone can play. The graphics of the game don’t help either; it must be at least 10 years since I have seen Unreal Engine look so… unreal. The characters look really bad, nothing like the cinematic trailer of the game, and now that I have rewatched it, I noticed how the gameplay trailer is cut just to show the shiny bits. It is truly disappointing. 

The only mystery worth solving in Unknown 9: Awakening is how such a terrible game made it through the countless checks and balances put in place to ensure that AAA games like this don’t see the light of day until they are ready. It’s at least 10+ hours of busy work before you get anywhere interesting in the game, and even then, the payout is just barely worth it. I cannot recommend this game even if you get it at a bargain basement price. There isn’t even anything worth saving or enough to build on top of as Cyberpunk 2077 managed to after their devastating debut. This was the first in the series of Unknown 9 releases that will include graphic novels, a web series, and more. Thanks to this game, I don’t think I will be checking those out any time soon.

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