Unknown 9: Awakening, we saw a preview of Bandai Namco’s cross media universe
Unknown 9 Awakening is an immense cross-media universe created by Reflector Entertainment: Anya Chalotra is the protagonist of a magical action game.
At the Play Days of the Summer Game Fest, the Bandai Namco stand also hosted a delegation from Reflector Entertainment, a company that it would be wrong to classify as a video game developer in the strict sense: it is, in fact, a new generation collective that was founded with the aim of proposing the “story of transmedia universes”, i.e. the construction of stories designed to unfold through different media of which one is video games, but combining the gameplay experience with comics, podcasts, novels and so on and so forth there’s more to it.
And this is precisely the fundamental nature of Unknown 9: Awakening, or rather the purely videogame parenthesis of the Unknown 9 universe, a sort of huge world anchored to a story suspended between fantasy and science fiction, which incidentally finds its main chapter in the adventure interactive starring Anya Chalotra. We know, said like this it sounds like a complicated question, but in reality it is decidedly simpler than it might seem: we attended a preview presentation of Unknown 9: Awakening , the video game published by Bandai Namco which will constitute the backbone of the universe of Unknown 9.
The Unknown 9 universe
Lately, video games have become increasingly intertwined with other media: comics and animated shorts have been launched for years, various virtual worlds are being transformed into successful TV series, while talented authors have been writing spin-off novels since the dawn of the sector. to broaden the scope of certain imaginaries. Reflector Entertainment defines itself as a new generation studio precisely because it begins to imagine universes spread across works of different nature right from day zero, willing to cover entire centuries of fantasy worlds. Unknown 9 will therefore constitute his first great effort, and will be published in the form of a video game, a scripted podcast, a trilogy of books, a comic series and, in the future, also some other derivatives that are not yet been announced.
The synopsis of Unknown 9 is quite complex and stratified, precisely because it aims to fragment into many stories destined to constitute the pieces of a large mosaic: at its roots, it is a world parallel to ours in which nine unknown individuals, precisely the Unknown 9 are the last repositories of the knowledge of a very advanced civilization that has disappeared and therefore they work to bring, from time to time, enormous technological leaps for the whole of humanity. In practice they are individuals considered as divinities who, acting in the shadows, arbitrarily regulate the scientific progress of the entire planet, consequently setting in motion the various forces that move to reveal their identity and take possession of that forbidden knowledge.
The main ones are two large factions that operate like secret societies away from the eyes of ordinary citizens, namely the Ascendant and the Leap Year Society : if the second is convinced that the knowledge of the Unknown 9 should be immediately shared with the world to start an indiscriminate new era of scientific progress, the Ascendant instead argue that that knowledge must remain a secret, preserved and kept in the hands of the few individuals destined to guide the future. The only constant that unites the forces at play lies in the incessant search for the Unknown 9 and their legacy: the members of the organizations face each other in the shadows chasing snatches of the hidden truth.
Then there is a further element that deserves a mention, namely the Reverse, a parallel dimension in the Upside Down style of Stranger Things which is linked to mysterious mystical powers, a place that many think could prove to be the hiding place chosen by the Unknown 9. The protagonist of the video game Unknown 9: Awakening, or Haroona played by Anya Chalotra, has a unique bond with the Reverse that allows her to “peek” through the veil of dimensions and even resort to “Stepping”, a form of magic that allows her to take possession of any living being for a few moments. It is precisely the story of Haroona that constitutes the center of gravity of the Bandai Namco title.
What is Awakening?
If the universe of Unknown 9 therefore always remains the same and aims to offer a constantly evolving story, the Awakening chapter is instead dedicated only to the story of Haroona and is set in the early 1900s , amidst somewhat Indiana-style atmospheres Jones and somewhat of a daughter of Jules Verne’s fiction. The girl, an ally of the Leap Year Society, will embark on an adventure during which she will deepen her bond with the Reverse and will try to put a spoke in the wheels of the Ascendants, who in turn are interested in taking over the mysterious power of the young.
In practice it is a third-person action video game linked to a strong narrative component but equally rooted in the gameplay: the familiar silhouette of Anya Chalotra will move between fantastic settings – we were able to witness a section in an African ruin linked to Unknown 9 – taking down the hordes of enemies that cross his path through a magical system that puts stealth and strategy in a role of clear pre-eminence compared to the good old one-eyed beatings.
The fundamental mechanic is in fact that of Stepping, a power that allows Haroona to momentarily leave his body to take over that of his enemies, exploiting them to sabotage equipment, eliminate their colleagues, interact with the scenario or generate evergreen explosions to clear the way clean. Thanks to Stepping it is possible to perform different actions in sequence which are resolved in order as if they became part of a stack, so that with the right amount of tactics it is possible to liberate an entire outpost in the blink of an eye.
For the rest, the experience is configured as the classic narrative action adventure anchored to semi-linear levels in which to take a few detours just to collect fragments of information and collectibles linked to the development of the character, among other things by exploiting a further mechanic called “Peeking” in order to peek through the Reverse in pure Assassin’s Creed Eagle Vision style. The character development system also deserves a mention, the result of a skill tree that branches out into three fundamental sections that cannot be completed in full, underlining the need to make precise choices: one is dedicated to pure combat, one rewards stealth, while the last revolves around the Umbric Abilities, or Haroona’s magical and telekinetic abilities.
Lots of details in the presentation
In the demo version that was shown to us – placed at a very advanced moment of the adventure with almost all the abilities unlocked – we saw all the aforementioned features intertwined with each other in an albeit short section of gameplay. Haroona conveys a feeling and sensations in some ways similar to those arising from the Jesse Faden encountered in Control, therefore she is an almost unstoppable force that moves freely on the battlefield, were it not for the fact that she is required to resort very often to stealthy approach.
The mission protagonist of the section was set in Sudan, specifically in an ancient ruin attacked by the Ascendants, who among other things used devices capable of blocking Haroona’s abilities linked to the Backhand , effectively forcing her to completely change her style of the game at least until the moment in which he would have knocked out the opponents’ generators. Unfortunately we were not able to hold the controller directly, but the experience seemed rather dry and fluid on the action front, touched by a right tactical component that seems to be able to shine even in battles with the bosses.
Honorable mention for the user interface , which is really very clean and stains the screen just the minimum necessary to show the protagonist’s remaining health, the number of Steppings that can be performed – the maximum at a given moment is a sequence of three possessions – as well as a few other information such as the timer relating to the remaining time of Stepping. The menus are also extremely well done, especially the mission diary: since in Unknown 9 there are no indicators on the screen , you have to read the diary written and updated by hand by the protagonist to understand what to do next.
For the rest we still have very few elements to fully understand the nature of Unknown 9: Awakening. From the presentation, Reflector Entertainment’s desire to go all-in on the story and above all on the construction of the universe clearly emerged , establishing the fixed points of a project which, probably, intends to unfold not only through other media, but in a entire video game saga.
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