Unknown 9 Awakening has been deemed a failure by development studio Reflector, and plans to expand the series with more games, along with other multimedia ventures, have been cancelled. This news also means that staff at Reflector are going to be let go as the studio looks to move to a single project future, with back office staff being affected by these layoffs.
In a statement, Herve Hoerdt, CEO of Reflector Entertainment, said, “Today, I informed our teams the decision to not greenlight further work on a future project that was in conceptualization phase and thus terminating this development line. Continuing the project would not have been sustainable for the future of the studio. Regrettably, this also means that there will be redundancies following the decision.
This decision correlates directly with the failure of the studio’s ambitious and courageous first project, a new IP with a rich transmedia universe. The performance of the release didn’t come near the company expectations, after numerous timeline adjustments and investments, both financially and other, and didn’t warrant any further exploration in this universe.
Unfortunately, this also affects back office staff, bringing the support teams in line with the single project approach the studio will adopt for the imminent future. Where possible, staff will be assigned to this project, based on an existing Bandai Namco IP, which is shaping up very well.
Reflector Entertainment will be providing adequate severance packages, extended health benefits for affected staff and families, continued access to emotional, mental health and counselling services and finally, proactive career planning support to set them up for future success. Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe will continue investing on creating Western content for global audiences, in line with the Group’s vision.”
Unknown 9: Awakening Review
In our review for Unknown 9: Awakening, Nic said, “I really wanted to write about the positives of featuring more cultures in this genre, and about how cool it is to have a famous actor play the protagonist, but sadly the gameplay gets in the way of anything interesting. Unknown 9: Awakening is just a bunch of gaming tropes loosely tied together with boring and uninspired NPCs lazily lurching from set piece to set piece, as the poorly designed game creaks and groans under the weight of expectation.”
Source: LinkedIn
