Reflector Entertainment and Bandai Namco’s Unknown 9: Awakening, which was developed by Sweet Baby Inc., has already seen its peak player counts decline by over 40% in just its first week on Steam.
A screenshot from Unknown 9: Awakening (2024), Reflector Entertainment
The game hit an all-time peak concurrent player count of 285 on Friday, October 18th, but has seen that number consistently drop throughout the next week. In the past 24-hours the peak concurrent players only hit 166.
That is a decline of 41.7%.
Unknown 9: Awakening SteamDB peak concurrent player charts
These numbers look even worse after a number of the reviews for the game on Steam indicated they received the game for free upon purchase of select AMD Ryzen processors, AMD Radeon RX Series graphics cards or AMD configured systems.
A screenshot of AMD’s website revealing a promotion giving away Uknown 9: Awakening and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
Dozens of individuals who reviewed the game revealed they got it for free. One wrote, “Thank you AMD for bringing PS2 graphics into the PC community in 2024. For inexplicable reasons, the game still runs 30 fps at native 4K resolution despite using yours truly 7800X3D & RX 7900 XTX. Now if you excuse me, I need to return to Imperium as I have yet to kill enough of those abhorrent Xenos for the Emperor.”
AceOperator111 on Steam
Another posted, “I got this game for free and that is a good thing. Developers need to understand that every game in this day and age needs to have at least a somewhat good combat system not make a dodge attack ♥♥♥♥ show like this is. I had at least a little bit of hope ignoring everybody that was telling me that it wasnt looking good and went into the game ready to be surprised but here we are.
“Everything is so stiff and unnatural its impressive that they managed to ♥♥♥♥ up that badly. The premise for the story is actually somewhat interesting but it was delivered so badly it all just felt very empty.
All in all just play anything,” he added.
MrDominikH on Steam
Tracedevils also wrote, “I got this game for free and I want a refund of the time I wasted on it. Graphics are garbage, combat is mediocre, main character stares directly into your soul with no emotion in her eyes. There isn’t much redeeming about this game, don’t waste your time or money on it.”
tracedevils on STeam
The game’s poor sales performance is an utter catastrophe for both Reflector Entertainment and Bandai Namco given the two were attempting to launch an “ever-expanding landscape” with the game.
On Bandai Namco’s website, the company explains, “It’s designed to expand across different entertainment mediums with every new story you consume. The more journeys you follow, the more connections you spot, and the clearer the larger, broader narrative becomes.”
It adds, “Think of it as multiple stories that come together to form one big adventure, a storytelling approach that unfolds a single narrative across multiple platforms, each one contributing uniquely to the overall experience.”
In fact, on top of Unknown 9: Awakening, Bandai Namco and Reflector Entertainment funded the Unknown 9: Out of Sight podcast, the Unknown 9: The Genesis Trilogy novels, and the comic book series Unknown 9: Torment.
A screenshot from Unknown 9: Awakening (2024), Reflector Entertainment
It is no surprise that the game was so disastrous. The game was worked on by Sweet Baby Inc. The Shorty Awards revealed the company’s involvement in an entry for the game that listed Sweet Baby Inc. co-founders David Bédard and Kim Belair in the game’s credits.
Bédard is credited as the Brand Content Manager at Reflector Entertainment Ltd. while Belair is credited as Story Architect at Sweet Baby Inc.
Screenshot from The Shorty Awards website
Furthermore, Craig Skistimas aka Stuttering Craig, the host and owner of Side Scrollers Podcast on YouTube, noted that his retail insider had shared with him that the game only received a total of 46 pre-orders and 12 of them ended up getting cancelled.
My retail insider who has access to the 800+ big box stores pre-order numbers tell me that Unknown 9 Awakening had a TOTAL of 46 pre-orders…
but 12 were cancelled. So actually there were only 34.
34 pre-orders in over 800 stores. YIKES. https://t.co/ElJn9KmyjC
— Stuttering Craig (Official) (@StutteringCraig) October 17, 2024
What do you make of Unknown 9: Awakening already losing over 40% of its peak players in less than a week despite bundling the game with AMD?
