Unknown 9: Awakening

“Unknown 9: Awakening is a promising start for a new series once you learn to love its combat.”

Despite some technical issues and a lacklustre final encounter, Unknown 9: Awakening brings a unique take on combat with an extremely well-acted plot that creates a story truly worth experiencing.

In the end, I enjoyed the first video game of the Unknown 9 universe, and I sure hope it won’t be the last, as I wanna keep going back to this vast fictional world. And while I want to applaud Reflector Entertainment and Bandai Namco for trying something different, perhaps they stuck a little too close to the action-adventure videogame genre’s tropes, in an attempt to better appeal to the masses. ...

Unknown 9: Awakening is full of originality, but suffers from some frustrating gameplay decisions despite the interesting mystery of its narrative.

Unknown 9: Awakening is a generally solid action-adventure mystery let down by irritatingly repetitive combat encounters in the game's later half. The character dialogue and environmental exploration are a highlight, keeping me playing even when other aspects annoyed me.

Unknown 9: Awakening has some issues, but is an overall interesting story with awesome powers to play with, and is technically playable on Steam Deck.

Unknown 9: Awakening is the debut game from studio Reflector Entertainment but not the first entry into the Unknown universe; so far there are novels, comics, and even a dramatised podcast. Thankfully, Awakening is a standalone experience and so you don’t need to delve into any of the other cross-media releases to understand anything.

Part of a mixed media web, Unknown 9: Awakening isn't strong enough to pull us further into its universe. Anya Chalotra's Haroona is a great protagonist, and causing havoc with supernatural powers can be a delight. But, lacking in polish, Unknown 9: Awakening feels torn between what it wants to be, ultimately undermining its areas of promise to deliver a janky experience. Despite it all, it can st...

Playing through Unknown 9: Awakening left me with a cocktail of emotions when I finally rolled credits after 13 hours. I usually pride myself in my ability to see eye to eye with a game’s vision and try to find even footing even if I didn’t have a good time with it, but this is different. The experience of playing Reflector Entertainment's debut title is akin to watching a bunch of trailers for th...

Unknown 9: Awakening boasts great combat and an ambitious story, but performance issues are too many to look past.

Unknown 9: Awakening is the perfect example of having great ideas, interesting lore, and well-written characters that are thrown to the wall in a random fashion to see if they stick together. The plethora of technical issues is so large that by the time the game gets going, one's investment is long gone.

Despite a few interesting ideas, Unknown 9: Awakening is a bland and janky adventure with a generic story and dull combat.