Unknown 9, the cross-media franchise that began with the ambitious Unknown 9: Awakening, has been cancelled, and there will be no further entries in the series. Initially, Reflector Entertainment had big plans for this universe, with tie-in novels, podcasts, and comics planned to share its world and mythos with an enthusiastic audience.
After Awakening and its tie-ins failed to find this audience, Reflector has chosen to pull the plug on the entire universe, confirming it didn’t perform anywhere close to company expectations. A future project in the conceptualisation phase has now been cancelled, and redundancies are set to follow.
“Continuing this project would not have been sustainable for the future of the studio,” Herve Hoerdt, CEO of Reflector Entertainment and CCO of Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe said on LinkedIn. “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.”
Read: We need more games like Unknown 9: Awakening
The reality is Unknown 9: Awakening did not achieve the attention or support hoped for. While it was a promising beginning for the Unknown 9 universe, containing neat alternative history ideas, and unique and rewarding combat, it didn’t do enough to differentiate itself, or encourage further investment in its world. It was a perfectly fine, enjoyable game, and in an era where players need to make tougher decisions about where to spend their money and time, it was simply swept aside.
Going forward, Reflector Entertainment will refocus on being a “single project” studio, with some staff set for redundancy, and others now transitioning to work on other Bandai Namco projects. It’s unclear how many staff will be made redundant following this decision, but Hoerdt explained that multiple teams will be impacted, including back office staff.
Those departing Reflector will be provided “adequate” severance packages, extended health benefits, access to emotional and mental health and counselling services, and access to career planning support for their next steps. As always in situations like this, our thoughts are with those staff departing the company.