Unknown 9: Awakening Shows Real Promise, Once the Story's Out of the Way | Push Square
As we entered the furthest corner of Bandai Namco's space at Summer Game Fest Play Days, we were introduced to the world of Unknown 9, a multimedia story spanning comics, novels, podcasts, and soon, a video game. It's a super ambitious project, and admirable effort has gone into building this intriguing universe, but it's once all the proper nouns and key words are set aside that Unknown 9: Awakening can show its potential.
Still, if we had to try and wrap our heads around it, so do you. The titular Unknown 9 are immortal beings with a strong connection to The Fold, a strange parallel dimension. They're said to have watched over humanity's entire existence, though nobody knows why. A group known as Quaestors believe the 9 to hold profound wisdom and power, and these people have aligned themselves into two groups. The Leap Year Society is aiming to learn the 9's secrets and pass it on to humanity for the greater good. Meanwhile, The Ascendants want this knowledge for themselves, and to break the cyclical nature of humankind's messy history.
Our protagonist, Haroona, is able to tap into The Fold herself, resulting in some interesting and rare powers such as Stepping. She can temporarily step into The Fold and use that to possess people and manipulate objects. She's on a quest for revenge against Vincent, the man who killed her father.
All of this context is important and sets up an interesting narrative, but it's just a lot to churn through. Fortunately, from what we were shown of the game itself, it appears to be shaping up pretty nicely. This is a linear action adventure with an emphasis on combat infused with Haroona's supernatural abilities.
She can step into enemies to temporarily possess them. When she does, you can control the enemy's next movements; perhaps you strike a nearby hazard, or fire a weapon at another enemy, for example. When she returns to her own body, these actions are carried out, with the bad guys effectively eliminating themselves. Of course,
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