Why Bandai Namco is betting big on Unknown 9's transmedia universe

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Unknown 9 is not the first video games IP to launch with a transmedia strategy, nor will it be the last. But it is perhaps the most ambitious the industry has seen in some considerable time.

The series is the brainchild of Montreal-based developer Reflector Entertainment, which Bandai Namco acquired in October 2020. While Reflector had already released an Unknown 9 comic, a dramatised podcast, and a novel before it was purchased, the story will truly kick off with the launch of action-adventure game Unknown 9: Awakening, which launches on consoles and PC this summer.

But the game is just one part of the story. Reflector Entertainment CEO and Bandai Namco Europe's chief content officer Hervé Hoerdt says the transmedia releases are crucial pillars for this new IP – to the point where the studio even has small teams dedicated to different types of media.

"What we're trying to achieve here, for the first time ever I think, is a full story world," he tells GamesIndustry.biz. "It's a universe and a meta narrative that spans over one century. The output is across nine different media, and it's multi-layered. You can buy the book and enjoy it as a standalone, but you will discover there are some hidden things. There are some codes in various media, and then we'll reveal on a website the links between those various media, and people will just go crazy seeing the overarching story."

Unknown 9 centres around the titular group of immortals, two secret societies competing to gain their knowledge, and the Fold, a parallel dimension that grants certain individuals supernatural abilities in the physical world.

Across the game, novels, comic, and podcast, the story spans from the 19th Century up to the present day, with easter eggs, recurring characters, and hidden messages linking them together (which already have their own fan-made wiki).

Awakening, the first game, is set in 1908 and focuses on Haroona (played