Another Sweet Baby Inc. Disaster: Kim Belair's Latest Failure with Unknown 9: Awakening
Yet another game with ties to Sweet Baby Inc. has gone up in flames... and the house continues to burn. Reflector Entertainment, the developer behind the heavily criticized Unknown 9: Awakening, has officially come out and announced that their game a complete failure. This marks yet another misstep from a studio that had been directly tied to Kim Belair, CEO of Sweet Baby Inc., who was the "Story Architect" for this project. It raises an important question for everyone to wonder: Just how many games need to utterly and completely flop before consultancy groups stop getting opportunities?
Unknown 9: Awakening was initially pitched as an ambitious, transmedia universe, but almost immediately failed to meet expectations on almost literally every conceivable level. They put the proverbial cart before the horse here, without gauging any audience interest and instead, just dropping an entire world of lore on everyone - a world that seemingly no one cared about at all to begin with.
Released on October 17, 2024, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, the action-adventure title followed the story of Haroona, a young woman from India, as she dove into a secret world of supernatural mysteries. Despite their hopeful and lofty ambitions, the game fell flat with both critics and audiences, earning a dismal average critic score of 59, and a user score of... 1.7 on Metacritic. YIKES.
This isn't the first time Unknown 9: Awakening has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Back in November 2024, I reported on the first round of layoffs at Reflector Entertainment, citing an anonymous tipster who I subsequently confirmed the information through posts on LinkedIn. At the time, multiple posts from individuals announcing their layoffs corroborated the situation, alongside several profiles newly marked as "open to work." The writing was already on the wall for Reflector Entertainment, and now it seems one of the final nails has been hammered into their coffin.
According to a post to LinkedIn by Herve Hoerdt, CEO of Reflector Entertainment and CCO of Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, the decision to cut future development projects and adopt a single-project approach stems directly from the catastrophic reception of this game.
“This decision correlates directly with the failure of the studio’s ambitious and courageous first project, a new IP with a rich transmedia universe... 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 this universe.”
As a result of this failure, Reflector Entertainment has also decided to cancel a future project that was still in the conceptualization phase. This move will lead to more layoffs, though potentially some employees might be reassigned to work on an existing Bandai Namco IP... Those impacted by the layoffs will receive severance packages and extended health benefits, which is great for them for the short term, but the fallout from all of this is undeniable.
What makes this situation even more comical is how Unknown 9: Awakening was meant to be the centerpiece of the Unknown 9 Storyworld, a transmedia project spanning games, books, and other media. This entire ecosystem has now been scrapped, showing just how badly this game underperformed. It’s definitely not the first time a Sweet Baby Inc.-related project has fallen apart, but it’s certainly one of the most high-profile failures to date.
Kim Belair and her team at Sweet Baby Inc. have developed an ongoing reputation for their involvement in projects that are clearly far more focused on meeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) quotas than on creating actual engaging gameplay experiences. The repeated failures of games connected to Sweet Baby Inc. suggests to me that this approach is just NOT translating into any kind of successful game development.
It’s wild to think about how many opportunities Sweet Baby Inc. and Kim Belair have been given, despite their extensive track record of ...we'll say... underperformance, to be nice. Their influence on projects like Unknown 9: Awakening has proven to everyone that they are more of a liability than an asset. At what point do studios and publishers stop turning to them for guidance? Bandai's 'Reflector Entertainment' announcement of layoffs and project cancellations should serve as a wake-up call for the industry... But don't hold your breath at this rate.
Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe has pledged to continue investing in Western content for global audiences. It remains to be seen whether lessons will be learned from this debacle, but for now, the failure of Unknown 9: Awakening is yet another reminder of the risks associated with prioritizing ideology over quality gameplay.
The gaming industry is full of talented developers and creative thinkers who are eager for their shot. Maybe it’s time for studios to give those talented individuals a chance, rather than sticking with self-admitted unqualified consultants and studios that consistently fail to deliver anything noteworthy. Reflector Entertainment’s downfall is just the latest chapter in an extremely troubling pattern—one that needs to end if the industry is to get back to seeing trust and success in the games being worked on.
~Smash
While it's great that this woke slop flopped and the clowns who made it lose their jobs, the most important bit of information is at the end of the statement - Bamco "will continue investing on creating Western content for global audiences". More of this is in the pipeline. Giving money to Bamco products funds garbage like this.
Sbi are like locusts consume every natural resource than move on
Another dev studio with that Sweet Baby Stink on it.
Transmedia universe? LOL