Honestly, I had zero hopes for Unknown 9: Awakening after covering it in an in-depth preview last month. But now that it’s out in the wild, we can finally experience this highly anticipated Sweet Baby Inc. (SBI) project, and oh boy… it’s even worse than I could have imagined.
"Unknown 9: Awakening" has bombed on its debut, struggling to gain ANY traction on Steam Charts. The game is being panned by critics and players alike, even getting a low score of 5 out of 10 from IGN— who're known for giving DEI favorable reviews. Hell Concord and Dustborn both got 7/10's (lolz)...
On steam charts, it peaked on launch day at 169.
100 more people than I predicted....
The reception has sparked discussions about the game's development choices and overall execution. Many folks I've seen wondering what is keeping projects like this afloat - despite its poor performance. I'd suggest after this bomb that significant changes are needed within Sweet Baby Inc and its leadership. The (expected) failure at launch has left a lot of people wondering about the future of the "franchise" and its developers... Especially Sweet Baby Inc.
The game was supposed to be SBI’s poster child, with Kim Belair at the helm as the "lead architect" of its supposedly "groundbreaking" narrative.
Yet, even IGN - the "7" factory—known for not the harshest critic of woke games these days—couldn’t hold back, giving it a dismal 5/10 and particularly skewering the story, which was meant to be the centerpiece of this release, stating:
Haroona’s predictable tale is full of cliches and unremarkable characters, eventually getting horribly lost in a sea of magical jargon.
So what went wrong? For starters, Unknown 9 suffers from some of the most trite and cringe-inducing dialogue gamers have seen in recent years. The protagonist, a supposedly "strong woman" archetype, is as one-dimensional as they come, with none of the nuance or depth needed to drive the narrative forward.
Within 10 minutes, even IGN had had enough, tearing apart the character’s unlikeable personality and shallow development. It’s a glaring example of Sweet Baby Inc.'s incompetence when given full creative control.
On top of the abysmal story, Stuttering Craig recently took to Twitter to reveal just how disastrous the game's pre-release has been. He tweeted:
"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 canceled. So actually there were only 34. YIKES."
That’s 34 pre-orders across over 800 stores! it’s not surprising considering his track record for predicting failures in woke game launches. He’s been right every time. Currently, Craig is reporting that the final pre-order numbers for Unknown 9 sit around 35 in total from his source's stores—an absolutely catastrophic showing for Sweet Baby Inc.’s "big" release.
Alyssa Mercante, who never seems to miss an opportunity to defend Sweet Baby Inc., wasn’t too pleased with Craig’s reporting either. As I’ve covered before in my video on Kim Belair, Alyssa has a tendency to jump in for proactive damage control anytime SBI is criticized. It’s strange how hard she works to cover up for their failures, and Unknown 9 is no exception.
The game’s performance on Metacritic volumes as well. Sitting at a meager 64 currently, Unknown 9 is facing brutal reviews across the board. Critics quick to point out the game's technical issues, particularly the poor performance on PS5, and the disjointed gameplay that feels like a patchwork of half-baked ideas. Oh.. and the game costs $50 USD hahaha...
As Eurogamer put it:
"While many AA games manage to cleverly hide a small budget, the developers of Unknown 9: Awakening have failed in this art. Every element of this game reminds us that we are dealing with an underdeveloped product that proved too challenging for Reflector Entertainment. I don't understand why the studio didn't pick one style of gameplay and focus its limited resources on it. Add to this the poor performance of the PS5 version and serious technical problems, and you get a below-average title."
It’s clear that SBI has once again killed another game with its shallow approach to storytelling and lack of technical expertise. Rather than focusing their limited resources on one clear gameplay style, they tried to do too much and in typical SBI fashion... failed miserably. What could have been their crowning achievement to prove us 'haters' wrong has instead turned into yet another piece of trash to toss into the burning fire of woke garbage. This is what happens when woke priorities and DEI ideologies overshadow actual quality game development.
The put the cart before the proverbial horse here, by creating an entire storyworld behind what ended up being an unproven, and ultimately, undesired piece of media...
As Sweet Baby Inc. and Kim Belair continue to fumble major projects, it’s only a matter of time before studios wise up and stop entrusting them with the reins to such high-profile games. Until then, all we can do is watch as more disasters like Unknown 9 unfold in real-time.
~Smash
Allow me to put on my shocked face: 😐
It's hard to have any resource available when you have to pay 7 millions of extortion money to Scam-BI.
Also what's with Melissa and SBI. Is she hooking up with Kim or something?
Clearly another game that's obviously failed Big time and Sweet baby Stink ain't gonna like this at all because it will show them that NO ONE out there likes there Garbage DEI games