Awakening Goals to Fuse Physique-Snatching Gameplay With a Sturdy Narrative

New IP followers, rejoice! Unknown 9: Awakening, the debut challenge from developer Reflector, is coming this 12 months. You may bear in mind the teaser trailer from Gamescom a number of years in the past that turned some heads, and after taking a primary take a look at an hour of gameplay, I left desperate to get some hands-on time with it and dive deeper. Any day we get to take a break from taking part in sequels and discover uncharted territory is an effective day, and with some critical thought put into an all-new universe and a psychically souped-up protagonist with some fascinating fight skills, this third-person action-adventure positively has potential.

With a plethora of incredible action-adventure video games doubtless already in your video games library, Unknown 9 hopes to set itself aside with its killer function: the power to briefly possess your enemies, known as “stepping.” By stepping, you’ll be able to command one enemy to take deadly hearth at his ally, earlier than leaping into one other enemy and compelling him to blow himself up by attacking an explosive piece of equipment, then safely leap again into your individual physique and watch your violent schemes unfold. Within the demo I noticed, this cheeky tactic accounted for a lot of the motion, and made for some fascinating shenanigans, like one encounter the place snipers on a ledge had been possessed and made to shoot at their very own comrades beneath. Apparently, you’re additionally given free rein to make use of any of the skills of the troops you’re controlling, just like the highly effective floor pound capacity of the tanky bruiser enemy, or the ahead sprint assault of the spear-wielding footsoldiers.

In the event you’d slightly not play puppeteer, Unknown 9: Awakenings additionally has some stealth choices, the place you should use your powers to develop into invisible for a time and take down enemies from darkness or lure enemies away with ethereal projectiles summoned from skinny air. Sneaking up behind enemies to take them out has your kindly girl snatch the soul from her sufferer’s physique and tear it asunder, which is actually kinda alarming – however hey, that’s what you get for taking on arms towards a magic ninja. If subtlety isn’t your factor, simply go full brawler on these baddies with a complete slew of skills that allow you to pull and push enemies like a Jedi or block bullets with a magical “umbric protect”. There’s even an ideal parry mechanic for these trying to get sweaty with timing. Every of those approaches has their very own ability timber too, so you’ll be able to degree up the playstyle you like and develop into the last word goon-killing wizard. The part I used to be proven was solely 90 minutes or so into the journey, so one can solely think about the fascinating skills that may make themselves recognized at increased ranges.

There’s additionally one thing to be mentioned about Unknown 9’s bold worldbuilding and story.

That mentioned, I didn’t get to go hands-on with Awakening myself, and till I do it’s arduous to say if a few of these distinctive ideas, like stepping, shall be sufficient to distinguish itself from comparable third-person adventures. At first look, they definitely appear to do some fairly novel issues I haven’t seen earlier than, and that’s with out even having seen the entire ability tree but, however I’m nonetheless a tad involved that making fools out of enemies by possessing them and setting them up for failure won’t have legs after the 20 th time you’ve performed it. Right here’s hoping our hero has some methods up her sleeve that I didn’t get to see simply but.

Beating up dangerous guys apart, although, there’s additionally one thing to be mentioned about Unknown 9’s bold worldbuilding and story, which already consists of digital comics, a podcast audio drama, and novels, all as a method of fleshing out the universe that Awakening will occupy. As a younger lady from India named Haroona, you uncover your psychic skills and start to analyze a magical parallel actuality often known as the Fold, from which your powers are presumably derived, and that each one performs into the present lore that’s being arrange within the supplemental content material, together with laying the groundwork for numerous factions you’ll encounter within the recreation, just like the enigmatic and knowledge-hungry group often known as The Leap 12 months Society. Having now learn the comics and listened to a few of the scripted podcast content material, that groundwork appears to have quite a lot of promise, and if it may be weaved into the story that appears to be entrance and heart in Unknown 9: Awakening, that might be a significant purpose to regulate this one.