About

Unknown 9: Awakening is a 2024 action-adventure video game developed by Reflector Entertainment and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game was released in mid-October 2024, for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Set in India in the early 20th century, the game follows a woman with magical powers fighting against a mysterious organization that killed her mentor. The failed triple A game received mixed reviews upon release and due to low sales, all its multimedia franchise projects were subsequently canceled. The game also reached a peak player count of 285 players within a month of the game's release on Steam, which became a viral topic in mid-January 2025 after the gaming studio announced the game was a failure and that employees had been fired. Awakening was then compared to the also disastrous Concord first-person hero shooter released in August 2024.

History

Unknown 9: Awakening^[1] was formally announced on August 27th, 2020, at the Gamescom conference by Reflector Entertainment, founded by Alexandre Amancio, who previously worked on Assassin's Creed Unity. A trailer^[2] was also released on the same day, which amassed more than 1 million views and 9,900 likes in five years.

According to Wikipedia,^[3] Reflector Entertainment intended to create a transmedia storytelling experience, which promised to "tell its overall story, spanning video games, a scripted podcast, comic books, and other forms of entertainment."

Reception

The game received mixed reviews upon its release on October 18th, 2024, with its Metacritic^[4] page showing a 59 score based on 44 critics reviews and 1.7 score based on 270 user ratings. The low sales led to the cancellation of planned sequels.^[5]

On October 17th, 2024, IGN^[6] gave a 5 "mediocre" score to Unknown 9: Awakening, describing the game as "Everything from the formulaic story to the shallow and dull combat and stealth are well below the standard set by genre peers, and the consistently disheveled performance and bugs don’t do Awakening any favors." The review (seen below) received more than 277,000 views and 2,300 likes in four months.

MoistCr1TiKaL's Video

On January 30th, 2025, American YouTuber MoistCr1TiKaL posted a video titled "This is a Concord Level Failure," comparing Unknown 9: Awakening to the AAA game Concord, highlighting their respective failures in the gaming market. The video (seen below) amassed over 1.6 million and 50,000 likes in a day.

Online Presence

Following its release, Unknown 9: Awakening experienced a relatively low online presence with discussions about the game only gaining traction after Reflector Entertainment's CEO Herve Hoerdt announced on January 21st, 2025, via LinkedIn,^[6] that the studio has suffered layoffs following the “failure” of the title. The post (seen below) received roughly 132 reactions and 7 comments in a week.

The game's failure also sparked some "Get woke, go broke" comments in the online gaming community, as X^[7] user @TinkererYorch tweeted "The entire proposed franchise has been cancelled because the game 'didn't come near' expectations." Adding, "Good. Get woke, go broke." The post (seen below) received more than 216 likes and 20 reposts in a week.

External References