2 years after Unknown 9: Awakening bombed, Bandai Namco is closing the studio that made it

Two years after the release of Unknown 9: Awakening, its one and only game, Bandai Namco's Reflector Entertainment is closing.

The shutdown was revealed in a notice posted by Banda Namco (via Game Informer) saying the company "has passed a resolution to dissolve and liquidate its consolidated subsidiary Reflector Entertainment." The decision was made "after comprehensively considering future business plans, necessary additional investment, and the possibility of profitability and business continuation," Bandai Namco said.

Unknown 9: Awakening, featuring The Witcher star Anya Chalotra as a woman able to travel into a mysterious dimension known as the Fold, showed potential in our pre-release preview as a "linear, narrative-driven, set-piece laden" game drawing from Xbox 360 releases of the late 2000s.

The full game, however, landed with a thud. A month after launch, Reflector laid off 18% of its workforce; a few months after that, in January 2025, more layoffs followed as an in-development project was cancelled. Reflector CEO Herve Hoerdt said at the time that the decision "correlates directly with the failure of the studio's ambitious and courageous first project [Unknown 9: Awakening]," which "didn't come near the company expectations."

Reflector confirmed the coming end of operations in its own message on LinkedIn, writing that "after reviewing the progress of our latest project in pre-production, future development requirements, and current market conditions, Bandai Namco concluded that it could not justify several more years of investment."

Bandai Namco said the liquidation of Reflector Entertainment is expected to happen "once the necessary procedures according to local laws are completed," but a concrete schedule has not been set.