Unknown 9: Awakening review: The Anya Chalotra-led story charms, but combat lacks serious polish

Crouching in long grass, I've got my eyes on a whirring generator attached to a suppression field that'll mess with my powers. Moving in using a burst of invisibility to bypass a guard, I tap a button to blow up the device's fuel at a distance, enabling me to possess the back-up that comes-a-running, steering them into a flaming torch and setting them ablaze while I simultaneously force them to whack each other on the noggin. Only then do I hop into the fray, hurling astral projections out of my body to stun enemies before grabbing and punching their souls to dust.

These moments of controlled chaos are where Unknown 9: Awakening shines, but, like much of the game, it's something you've got to work hard at to enjoy. You're just as likely to get stunlocked by a volley of ranged bullets you can't see, or end up punching air while the overly-zippy foes back pedal away and the camera struggles to keep up with your lock-on. Performing finishers that allow you to go JoJo with your punch ghost can feel great, but more often than not fisticuffs can best be solved by continuously holding down the attack button for guard-breaking heavy hits, especially when their AI gets confused so they freeze in place.

Rift apart

Combat is plentiful, which might not be the hook you expected considering it stars Anya Chalotra (best known as The Witcher TV series' Yennefer) as Haroona. While she's a delight, a prickly loner on a quest for revenge when a mission with her mentor goes awry; entering the world of Unknown 9 is, again, something you need to work at.

Set in a sort of alternate reality loaded with airships and magic-powered ancient relics, the opening of Unknown 9: Awakening is stuffed to the brim with proper nouns – Am, The Fold, Rifters, Shades, Quaestors, and more. While Haroona's journal contains a handy glossary, I still felt lost from early on. Not least of all because this transmedia project already contains comics, novels, and podcasts, with two, count 'em, two web series on the way.

As an outsider, though, Haroona provides a nice entry point. She's particularly sensitive to Am (essentially, magic), but being unaffiliated with any particular faction, it's something she's uncovering alongside the player. Though that does have the unfortunate side effect of hiding some of her best powers until they're doled out through story progress, which is further delayed by having to track down skill point collectibles before you can use them to their fullest.

A globetrotting adventure ensues as the Ascendents and the Society butt heads trying to uncover the Am-laded secrets of the mysterious and immortal Unknown 9, all while Haroona is after the Ascendents' leader's head. After the city-set opening level, for the most part you're moving through uninhabited ruins making for samey action and also a lack of insight into the society of this world (one for the extended media, I suspect). Visually these locations can be quite pretty, but graphically have more than a few rough edges, many interiors suffering from odd lighting glitches.

The way you move through each area is much the same. The rhythm of each linear level quickly becomes rote, made up of straightforward sections with some stiff jumping interspersed with collectibles and the very occasional simplistic puzzle, followed by an enemy camp. Usually starting in stealth, the idea is often to pick off as many foes as you can before things go loud (though some can be avoided altogether). Rinse and repeat.

Even at its best the stealth doesn't feel very elegant, with waist-high cover and acres of untended grass. Haroona can remotely draw attention with an orb of Am, but this can get stuck on geometry, sometimes inadvertently causing it to attract enemies much closer than you'd intended.

Still, there's something to be said about Haroona's stealth takedown that has her pull the spirit out of a guard's body and swat it away. It's chilling. But avoid investing too heavily into the stealth branch of the skill tree, as the further you get the more fisticuffs Haroona will be forced to participate in, meaning by later encounters you may as well just get stuck in playing whack-a-mole from the off.

Some of the game's more memorable areas eschew this structure a bit. One is set in a run-down gothic mansion that has you working from the basement up as you explode magic barrels and uncover lore. Another puts the narrative to the fore as you spirit walk through a kind of dream space, which, thanks to some genuinely trippy world design, makes a trope I'm very much tired of feel fresh. They're exceptions to the rule, only highlighting how the structure makes the rest of the time feel like a slog. It doesn't help that there are multiple chapters that plonk you into the same hub base to stand still as NPCs spout optional lore at you.

Waking up

It's hard to shake the feeling that Unknown 9: Awakening doesn't know what it wants to be. The presence of Anya Chalotra and a world filled with lore suggests the story should be really important, but awkward cutscenes, pacing, and odd fades to black make it feel incomplete.

Likewise, letting you go ham with supernatural spirit powers feels like another pitch with serious potential. When it works, bamboozling goons by using the environment against them is a riot, but the serious lack of polish makes bust-ups feel janky and ultimately discourages that kind of creative play. It might be the kind of no frills experience I'm almost nostalgic for, but Unknown 9: Awakening irritates more than it feels fun – and I can't believe I'm saying that about a game where you can magically shove people into explosives and pull them off cliffs.

Despite it all, Haroona's journey still charmed me, and though it pitches itself as the entry point to a larger world it thankfully does tell a story that feels complete (side-eying The Order 1886 here). But it's also a game that has too many caveats to recommend unless you're really able to meet it halfway.

The Unknown 9 world is clearly ambitious, but after hitting credits I can't say I have much interest in further following its narrative universe. Rather than deploying an almost overwhelming amount of mixed media projects at once, I'd have rather seen Unknown 9: Awakening honed to the point where it could truly create fans from its own merits. Instead, it just feels like Unknown 9 puts the gas before the airship.