Venture into the Mysterious Dimension of Unknown 9: Awakening
Ever since it first got revealed during Gamescom 2020, Unknown 9: Awakening the debut project from developer Reflector Entertainment, managed to spark anticipation right away and one of the main reasons for this was the fact that as a third-person action-adventure game it aims to introduce some new and exciting gameplay features to make it stand out from the rest of the crowd in the genre. Ever since then we have gotten many teasers and trailers as well as official demo footage regularly to keep us thrilled and wanting more.
As we are getting nearer to October 18th 2024, the Unknown 9: Awakening release date is coming closer and closer. Very soon, we would be able to venture into the mysterious world of the Fold and uncover what hidden mysteries are awaiting us there. The title is getting released for the following platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S.
Join us on this journey as we are going to discover and explore a bit more about the story, characters, and mechanics as well as the wholesome capacity of the Unknown 9 universe, because the game Unknown 9: Awakening by Bandai Namco and Reflector Entertainment is just a part of all the events and stories that span across a variety of Unknown 9 multimedia products shaping up a much bigger world that you could get familiar with.
Enjoy a Storyline Full of Mystery and Magnificently Crafted World Building
Long ago there was an ancient civilization with the given ability to wield amazing and mysterious powers. The source of these powers comes from a hidden dimension that is just known as the Fold. Most of the knowledge about this great source of power has been already lost to history with only nine people being the exception.
These 9 individuals have to protect the knowledge and only keep it to themselves, as far away as possible from anybody that could potentially use the valuable information contained in it to try and bring the end of humanity.
In this marvelous title you are going to go on a journey all across the world - From the sandy desserts of Mauritania to the deepest Indian jungles and the gothic landscapes of 19th century Portugal. You will get to explore some of the most mysterious locations this mesmerizing world has got to offer.
The whole narrative is set to revolve around the different aspects of shady and occult secret societies that dominate the order and rule over the whole in-game world.
You Get to Play as a Courageous Young Woman with the Rare Ability to Channel Powers from the Fold.
Meet your protagonist - Haroona, a Quaestor that got born with the extremely rare ability to tap into a mysterious dimension that only she can see and navigate through but still have a way to affect reality as she wants to. While looking for answers on her quest Haroona is going to learn how to further adopt and fully master her abilities to connect to the Fold, as it allows her to use more and more of its powers into our world.
She is on a mission to get revenge for the murder of her mentor Reika, who has helped her greatly by teaching her how to even begin using her hectic superpowers because, even though Haroona is able to tap into the power of the Fold she still has not quite mastered all of her skills and abilities, so over the course of the Unknown 9: Awakening story, she is going to find out that the true scale and proportion of her journey is much greater than just a matter of delivering vengeance. Her range of abilities, which she uses to tap into the Fold, are going to expand significantly, thus allowing her to exploit an increasing variety of the so-called Umbric abilities, all of whom are separated into a few different skill trees that specialize in different aspects of her powers.
Such powers however do not easily remain unnoticed and our protagonist quickly gets on the radar of one of the occult factions that call themselves the Ascendants. They wish to use the powers of the Fold to drastically change the course of humanity's future.
While the Leap Year Society is another secret organization that is much more dedicated to learning the secrets of humanity so that they are able to advance it further and in the opposite direction from the Ascendants, who are much more sinister in their philosophy and accord their plan with darker intentions in mind. So, just like you have opponents to defeat, there are also worthy of attention allies that support you all through your adventure.
Use your Mastery of The Fold as Leverage and Choose upon Your Very Own Style and Skills Setup.
The primary ability that players are going to learn is Stepping. It basically allows Haroona to put her essence inside the body of any enemy she encounters for a limited period of time, and in doing so, allowing her to do whatever she wants with them, even shred their own essence to pieces if necessary.
Not only would you have the option to step into your enemies in order to control them but there are many more approaches available such as dodging bullets, quickly perform dashes and vanish from plain sight in mere moments, throw projectiles of Umbric energy at your opponents to hurt, lure or distract them as well as many, many more useful abilities that are carefully organized in different categories on your skill trees.
By stepping in an opponent you would become able to command the actions of this particular enemy and cause them to turn against their allies and group members, then jump straight into another foe and manipulate them in such a way that they blow themselves up by meddling with a piece of dangerous machinery or explosives, all of this with the option to safely return into your own body at any moment and then be able to witness how your implemented schemes play out from a safe distance.
Even though it may seem that Unknown 9: Awakening is a pretty flexible action game, it sometimes really gives off the feeling it is meant to be played in a far more stealthier manner. All the signs for this are quite present; there is a lot of climbing up and going down on different surfaces in the level architecture, as well as quite a bit of cases where you would need to be balancing over narrow edges in the Unknown 9: Awakening gameplay. There are always many objects to hide behind making it possible to crouch and sneak closer without being detected or perhaps use the terrain wherever possible to dash through the lush grass and perform a carefully prepared surprise hand-to-hand attack.
The ways you could approach a situation could vary greatly and another impressive example to be given here is that if you notice a sniper who is positioned on the higher grounds and is located above a section that is full of strong grunts, you could step in and become the sniper for a moment and force him to shoot anyone without any warning. Another thing you could do is posses one of the grunts and count on a strong melee attack to be delivered upon anyone standing around.
Apart from the regular enemies there would also be a more powerful Bruiser type, one that simply cannot go down as easy as the rest of the opponents. While it still is possible to Step into other foes to take him out, it would also be an option to Step into the Bruiser and go on a mad frenzy against the lesser types.
This mechanic adds a very tactical twist to combat, but also offers a lot of original ways to approach the action! What is more interesting is the fact that you are given the opportunity to fully exploit all of the abilities innate to the units you get to have control over, an example of this would be the powerful ground pound ability of the bigger enemies, or the fast forward dash of the soldiers equipped with long spears.
Use What you Have in your Environment to Take Complete Advantage of the Arena During Battles
Battle arenas are full of combustible objects, so Haroona has the ability to direct things in a way that a foe gets thrown towards an explosive barrel and the blast would usually take out all enemies caught near the event. As you progress further you would start finding collectible objects named Anomalies and Haroona's Stepping ability would become stronger and stronger as it would allow players to take over up to four different enemies in a sequence of events, orchestrating much more complex situations and death traps for them. This of course brings the option for some fun situations with enemy-on-enemy attacks put in a chain of events to cause as much chaos as possible showing that Unknown 9: Awakening is really encouraging players to be a little more creative every time they wish to.
Of course, as you may have already suspected enemies will at times catch up to Haroona's Stepping skills and introduce Anti-Stepping devices that would sometimes be scattered around the combat arenas, so that they strip you of your powers and in such cases players would need to be much more sneaky and put some of the other abilities into practice.
The Fold grants Haroona the powers to push, pull, or crush objects from a certain distance and she is able to also look through certain objects to get a better understanding of what lies ahead and how dangerous or risky it is. She can cloak herself or place a protective shield around her for a short period and this way get the necessary time to put a foe down. There is even an awesome parry mechanic that would allow you to avoid getting hurt if you time your counter moves and evasions properly.
It is quite clear that Reflector Entertainment wanted to implement such smaller details that when combined together present a truly engaging single-player gaming experience that allows you more control over the fights. A thing we could point out to is the HUD which is neatly reduced to take the bottom-left corner only, making it less intrusive while retaining functionality.
Unknown 9: Awakening has Really Bold Ambitions to Deliver on a Much Bigger Universe of Multimedia Formats.
When you put aside beating enemies up or sneaking behind them from the shadows, there is also something else to be said about Unknown 9’s complex world building and plot - the Unknown 9: Awakening action game is just one part of a bigger array of media that already includes various formats such as comic books, adventure novels and even a series of podcasts that all revolve around different storylines from the vast world the franchise wishes to present to fans.
It all comes down as a method to build the universe that the game is going to happen in as it all plays some role into the established lore that is getting set up by the supplemental content, including the effort to introduce the various factions you would encounter in the video game. It absolutely seems that this groundwork has already demonstrated a lot of promise and in case it gets involved into the story properly in the Unknown 9: Awakening steam release it could be a major reason to continue following the different types of media outlets the franchise presents.
Bandai Namco and Reflector Entertainment surely have high hopes regarding the Unknown 9: Awakening game to further establish this sci-fi property. Many of those hopes could depend on the fan reception, but we would need to wait for it to get officially released to see how the story unfolds and what other mediums or sequels it could produce in the future. There is still one slot on the official website for the title that says “Coming soon” right next to the rest of the formats and it is not yet even announced what its function would be.
Pre-Order Offer and Types of Digital Editions Available to Order
As we are awaiting the time to pass for the game to reach the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S platforms, perhaps it would be a good idea to consider the Pre-order offer now and gain access to the Haroona Quaestor DLC that is featuring a unique Haroona skin with 2 color variations, the Quaestor journal reskin, and two extra alternative animations.
Apart from the standard edition there would also be the Digital Deluxe Edition of Unknown 9: Awakening which would also include:
- - The Mercenary cosmetic pack;
- - The Shadow cosmetic pack;
- - The Aviator cosmetic pack.
Each of these packs would also contain an exclusive and unique Haroona skin with two additional color and texture options included, as well as a supplementary skin for Haroona’s journal and two bonus alternative combat animations.
That being said, at a first glance, we could say for sure that Bandai Namco and Reflector Entertainment certainly seem to be doing some pretty outstanding things that we have not seen very often up to now and it is exciting what new ways there would be to enjoy the franchise. We cannot wait for October 18th to come and get our hands on the Unknown 9: Awakening steam release so that we experience this adventure in its entirety!
As always, we would keep striving to let you know whenever there is something interesting in the gaming sphere, so stay tuned for more interesting updates and promotions to follow!