Unknown 9: Awakening Aims to Fuse Body-Snatching Gameplay With a Strong Narrative

ign.com:

New IP fans, rejoice! Unknown 9: Awakening, the debut project from developer Reflector, is coming this year. You might remember the teaser trailer from Gamescom a few years ago that turned some heads, and after taking a first look at an hour of gameplay, I left eager to get some hands-on time with it and dive deeper. Any day we get to take a break from playing sequels and explore uncharted territory is a good day, and with some serious thought put into an all-new universe and a psychically souped-up protagonist with some interesting combat abilities, this third-person action-adventure definitely has potential.

With a plethora of fantastic action-adventure games likely already in your games library, Unknown 9 hopes to set itself apart with its killer feature: the ability to briefly possess your enemies, called “stepping.” By stepping, you can command one enemy to take lethal fire at his ally, before jumping into another enemy and compelling him to blow himself up by attacking an explosive piece of machinery, then safely leap back into your own body and watch your violent schemes unfold. In the demo I saw, this cheeky tactic accounted for most of the action, and made for some interesting shenanigans, like one encounter where snipers on a ledge were possessed and made to shoot at their own comrades below. Interestingly, you’re also given free rein to use any of the abilities of the troops you’re controlling, like the powerful ground pound ability of the tanky bruiser enemy, or the forward dash attack of the spear-wielding footsoldiers.

If you’d rather not play puppeteer, Unknown 9: Awakenings also has some stealth options, where you can use your powers to become invisible for a time and take down enemies from darkness or lure enemies away with ethereal projectiles summoned from thin air. Sneaking up behind enemies to take them out has your kindly lady snatch the soul from her victim’s body and tear it asunder, which is honestly kinda alarming – but hey, that’s what you