We were Unknown 9: Awakening almost forgotten, in fact, until we suddenly heard this year that the game was being released. In the four years since its announcement, we haven’t heard much about this ambitious project until now. Unknown 9 not only consists of the game, but also comes with podcasts, books, and a comic that further deepens the universe. Before we get into all the other stuff, let’s first see how Awakening can get rid of it. It has recently hit store shelves.
in Unknown 9: Awakening we put ourselves in the position of Haroona, the so-called quaestor. This means he can use The Fold, a supernatural power that allows him to see beyond ordinary mortals and use paranormal abilities. The Quaestors exist to explore the secrets of the past to help humanity progress. On the other side of the coin is the Leap Year Society, a group that wants to use that knowledge for themselves at any cost and sees in Haroona someone they can use for that.
To be honest, we still understand quite a bit of what we described in the previous paragraph. It all seems pretty simple, but the story only explains very limitedly what the motivations of both groups are and why they are so intent on killing each other. No doubt there was a lot of thought put into it, but we didn’t really feel any sense of urgency. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing in itself, though it’s obviously a shame for such an ambitious universe that the story doesn’t come to fruition. If there’s a good game underneath the story, it can still compensate a lot, but unfortunately late Unknown 9 too many sticks here too.
In terms of potential, we have to say that everything looks good, especially when it comes to combat. Using Fold gives you access to several great options. The inspiration seems to come from Star Wars. This way you can push opponents away from you with a kind of Force Push, but you can also get into your opponents head to make them do what you want. At first it’s quite limited, but eventually you’ll become more and more powerful and more options will become available. However, this makes it very confusing. It seems that the creators had too many great ideas and wanted to pack everything into them. Where a little more focus would undoubtedly have worked well, now it defeats the purpose and you can simply do too much.
Also, everything feels pretty wooden. The game doesn’t always seem to respond well to what you want, and focusing on the opponents just doesn’t work well. All of this together makes the battle system unsatisfying and above all frustrating.
There is also platforming between battles. Here, too, you’ll notice that the game is a bit wooden. In the game like Tomb Raider / Uncharted it’s a joy to swing and climb through the levels, but in Unknown 9 it mostly feels like work because it just doesn’t flow.
Make Unknown 9: Awakening nothing good then? Fortunately, this is not the case. The environments are sometimes very beautiful and Anya Chalotra also manages to impress in the role of Haroona. You may recognize Chalotra WitcherThe Netflix series where she plays the role of Yennefer or Vengerberg.
It’s not enough to save the game though, it’s just too mediocre for that. The story and gameplay don’t make too much of an impression. It’s a shame because sometimes it’s too late Unknown 9: Awakening still sees his potential.
We played Unknown 9: Awakening on PlayStation 5. The game is also available for Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.