Action adventure game Unknown 9: Awakening was a ‘failure,’ says developer, which has cancelled a follow-up project and laid off staff

Reflector Entertainment has announced the cancellation of an in-development project and another round of layoffs following the “failure” of its debut game, Unknown 9: Awakening. Studio CEO Herve Hoerdt said he halted work in the project, which was in the “conceptualization phase,” as continuing development “would not have been sustainable for the future of the studio.”

“This decision correlates directly with the failure of the studio’s ambitious and courageous first project [Unknown 9: Awakening], a new IP with a rich transmedia universe,” Hoerdt wrote in a message posted to LinkedIn. “The performance of the release didn’t come near the company expectations, after numerous timeline adjustments and investments, both financially and other, and didn’t warrant any further exploration in the universe.

“Unfortunately, this also affects back-office staff, bringing the support teams in line with the single project approach the studio will adopt for the imminent future. Where possible, staff will be assigned to this project, based on an existing Bandai Namco IP, which is shaping up very well.”

Reflector previously announced layoffs in November 2024, just a month after the release of Unknown 9: Awakening, but said at the time that the cuts weren’t “driven by commercial success or external pressures.” Instead, studio general manager Marc-André Séguin said the layoffs simply reflected a lack of sufficient work for the number of people the studio had employed. At that time, the studio had “two key production lines entering the early stages of development,” one of which sounds like it was some sort of Unknown 9: Awakening followup, based on Hoerdt’s statement.

Now, though, Hoerdt is pointing the finger directly at Unknown 9: Awakening as the root of the problem. Sales figures for the game haven’t been released, but it certainly didn’t do well on Steam, where it sits with just 49% positive user reviews and a peak concurrent player count (via SteamDB) of 285. That’s not the whole story, as Unknown 9: Awakening was also released on consoles, but it’s sure not a good sign.

The number of people being put out of work wasn’t specified, but Hoerdt said affected employees will receive “adequate severance packages,” along with extended health benefits, counselling, and “proactive career planning support.” He also said that Bandai Namco, which acquired Reflector in 2020, “will continue investing on creating Western content for global audiences.”