Unknown 9: Awakening – Deluxe Edition

I went into Unknown 9: Awakening expecting a forgettable AA filler game, and it is partly that - but the Stepping mechanic kept pulling me back in ways I didn't anticipate. Haroona, voiced by Anya Chalotra, is a Questor whose core trick is possessing enemies mid-fight using a resource called Stepping Tokens. You literally climb inside an opponent, walk them off a cliff, crack them against an electrified generator, or turn them on their squadmates, then pop back out before the timer runs dry. When that loop is clicking, it feels like a stealth-puzzler wearing action clothing - and that is the game at its best. Outside of Stepping, the moment-to-moment design leans heavily on recognizable templates. Chapters alternate between linear corridor traversal (climbing vines, squeezing through wall gaps, crouching in tall grass), light exploration for skill-tree upgrades, and encounter rooms that follow a clear-everything-then-continue rhythm. The three-branch skill tree - Combat, Stealth, and Umbric Abilities - gives you enough flexibility to lean into a ghost-mode playthrough or a more aggressive Fold-powered brawler style, but the underlying AI is not smart enough to make either feel truly earned. Enemy pathfinding is basic and the animations are noticeably rough, which undercuts the tension the game is clearly trying to build. The narrative has ambition and lore depth - this is the entry point for a planned multimedia franchise - but the in-game storytelling rarely lands the way it wants to. Supporting characters are underdeveloped, the in-game journal stuffed with dense lore text that most players will skip entirely, and some story beats feel rushed against the 13-hour runtime. The voice cast performs well above the material they were given, and the diverse, globe-spanning environments (tropical ruins, arid plains, dense forests) give the world visual range that offsets visuals which otherwise run about a console generation behind current standards. The Deluxe Edition adds three cosmetic packs - The Mercenary, The Shadow, and The Aviator - so if you are weighing up whether the premium edition is worth the extra, be clear-eyed: those are strictly visual extras, nothing that changes how the game plays. The core experience is entirely single-player, roughly 13 hours to credits, with collectible hunts extending that modestly. If you are a story-first player who bounced off the reviews and is wondering whether the critics got it right, the honest answer is: mostly yes, but not entirely. The Stepping system is more inventive than the scores suggest, and for the right kind of curious player willing to tolerate dated production values, there is something worth experiencing in there.

Alex · Scout Team

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