Yennefer from Netflix's The Witcher Didn't Help Devs of Unknown 9: Awakening. Layoffs at Reflector Entertainment

The failure of Unknown 9: Awakening resulted in the studio responsible for the project, Reflector Entertainment, having to conduct layoffs.

Adrian Werner

November 22, 2024 03:34

Source: Bandai Namco

The action-adventure game Unknown 9: Awakening, which was released a month ago, turned out to be a spectacular failure. It probably won't surprise anyone that layoffs were conducted at Reflector Entertainment, the studio responsible for the project.

The scale of reduction is unknown. The studio officially doesn't comment on the matter, and we only know about the layoffs because the affected developers started writing about them.
Among those laid off are designer and screenwriter Anna Karina Bermudez and marketing executive Manou Deneuvel.

Both the devs and the publisher, Bandai Namco Entertainment, were counting on a big success. The plan was for an entire "narrative universe" encompassing not only games, but also comics, novels, fictional podcasts, and TV series. To increase the project's chances of success, Anya Chalotra, known for her role as Yennefer in the Netflix series The Witcher, was cast as the main character of Unknown 9: Awakening.

Eventually, nothing came out of it. Although Bandai Namco hasn't disclosed sales figures, the game's activity record on Steam is a tragic 285 people playing at the same time. The title also received poor reviews - according to Metacritic, the average rating of the PS5 version is only 59%, and on Steam only 45% of players rated the game positively.

Unknown 9: Awakening was released on October 18 this year on PC and Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5.