Unknown 9: Awakening is a painfully safe experience. It is by no means a bad game, in fact I’d go as far as saying that it contains several elements that are pretty well made. However, I would hesitate to call it a great game by any means, which ultimately makes it feels like somewhat of a waste considering the potential for what it could have been.
The backdrop of this specific part of of Asia is not one that we often see in gaming, with the region being criminally underused outside of a few examples. The concept of playing as a native fighting against western adversaries invading your homeland could be a very interesting perspective to take, possibly even providing some thought-provoking social commentary.
Sadly Unknown 9: Awakening doesn’t achieve this, nor does it really attempt to do much at all with this concept that is overly interesting. Both the game’s general combat and story play it woefully safe. Personally, I would have much preferred to see the game take some bold risks, even if it meant some elements not landing, at least it wouldn’t have felt overly safe.
Unknown 9: Awakening releases on October 18 2024 for PC, PS5, PS4, and Xbox consoles.
Unknown 9: Awakening is a Textbook Case of Good but Not Great
Let’s start with the positive aspects that this experience offers. First of all, it is nice just to see a game set in this part of the world. Unfortunately we don’t get to often play and this environment or get to play as a protagonist from this particular background.
Seeing some of the local culture portrayed onscreen, as well as the detailed architecture of the buildings shows how much effort the developers of Unknown 9: Awakening put into the art direction and modelling, which goes a long way in giving the game some much needed personality.
Speaking of the world the game is set in, this is an incredibly stunning looking game in terms of its environments. Some of the backdrops are utterly breathtaking and when the gorgeous in-game lighting effects combine with the environmental models and textures, it creates a feeling of true awe within the player.
Unfortunately the character models aren’t quite as stunning to behold, looking a little less detailed by comparison. Looking at other character models from 2024 titles, the ones seen in Unknown 9: Awakening seem somewhat antiquated by comparison. On the contrary, the character’s costumes are all pretty intricate, almost making up for the slightly subpar organic models.
The game’s bold art direction does a lot of the heavy lifting and allows other elements that may not be quite as impressive to get a pass. There is a definite sense of visual style present in Unknown 9: Awakening which makes it undeniably interesting to look at. The general presentation of the cutscenes and title sequence also works well, as does the look of the UI menus, such as the skill tree.
A Very Familiar Story
Unfortunately the story being weaved in Unknown 9: Awakening doesn’t quite match up to its visuals. Everything that took place during the game’s narrative I felt like I had seen a hundred times before, arguably done better. This seems like a waste given the intriguing set up that is laid out at the beginning of the experience.
Even after rolling the credits on Unknown 9: Awakening, all that I was left with was a generic experience that is far from memorable. It feels like one of the post-Endgame MCU movies, just going through the motions with nothing of importance to really say. Even as the story wrapped up I was already beginning to forget the events that had just played out during the conclusion.
The character animations seen during gameplay are not much to write home about. In fact the generic crouch/jump/run animations seen here are one element that reminds you that you are not playing a AAA game. Frustratingly the combat isn’t much better. It is functional, but it feels slightly stiff and awkward at times and it doesn’t look great on screen, nor does it feel great to play. Stealth is inconsistent and messy, never allowing the player to feel as thought they are truly in control.
Limited Power
The game tries to change things up somewhat by introducing a handful of different powers to the player, explained through some totally forgettable mumbo jumbo using words like Am, the Fold, and Shade. In case you couldn’t tell, I totally glazed over during the explanation, which should tell you everything you need to know about how riveting it was.
Like everything else in Unknown 9: Awakening, these powers are likely ones that you have seen before if you’ve played other action adventure games like Forspoken or Immortals of Aveum. Nothing here is going to blow you away unless this is somehow the first game of this kind that you’ve played.
One power allows Haroona to see enemies through walls in the vein of Detective Vision from the Arkham trilogy or Eagle Vision from Assassin’s Creed. You can also use astral projection like Doctor Strange to phase into guards and commandeer their bodies for a limited period of time. This means you can use one guard’s gun to shoot another guard or make a guard stand next to an explosive barrel in order to kill him.
You can also do things like cloak yourself to hide from enemies and generate a small shield to block ranged attacks. Again, this power set is hardly breaking any new ground within the sub-genre. Sadly describing these actions makes them seem a lot more interesting than they actually feel when seen in the game.
Shallow Impact
The combat in general feels very toothless and bloodless, lacking any feeling of visceral brutality. Outside of the powers, the basic hand-to-hand combat doesn’t really do much to excite either. The dodge and lock on functions are also somewhat touch-and-go in terms of how responsive they are during the heat of battle, which can lead to some frustration.
While I didn’t experience any significant crashes during my playthrough, there are a number of visual glitches that sadly litter the otherwise stunning visual experience. Issues like pop-in, screen-tearing and significant frame rate drops were particularly prominent during action-heavy cutscenes while the camera dynamically panned around the scene playing out.
I played the game while wearing a good pair of headphones, but I was never really blown away by the audio. The musical score and the sound effects are okay, but coming straight from something like Silent Hill 2 which is layered with specific detailed audio cues throughout, Unknown 9: Awakening pales in comparison.
The voice acting is perfectly sufficient, but falls a little flat during some of the more overly dramatic moments. Just like so many other aspects of this game it isn’t particularly memorable, but it does the job. Frankly, that latter statement sums up Unknown 9: Awakening in a nutshell.
This is far from the worst game of 2024, it isn’t even the worst game that has dropped in the month that it released, but it is just so painfully safe. It does the fundamentals fairly well, but beneath the surface of some aesthetically pleasing environments and pleasant presentation it fails to do anything beyond that to take it to the next level or make it really stand out from the pack.
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