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TL;DR Has potential but not worth the full price. Your $50 are better spent on the new Red Dead: Redemption PC port.
SPOILER WARNINGS for Chapter 1 and 2.

Review

This is a AA game, but it's fair to judge because it still cannot compete with modern AA releases.
My hopes were high for this game as an Uncharted-like game with some East-Asian influence. All I want is a good single-player, linear, cinematic, story-driven game with a good narrative, compelling characters, and fun gameplay.
And yes, I played this game on a controller because this is what it was designed for. I also played on a high-end computer.
I have played halfway through Chapter 2 until I unfortunately lost interest.

Gameplay

Combat
This combat system reminds me of Dishonored. The gameplay puts heavy emphasis on stealth, combining supernatural abilities with a melee-focused attacks just like Dishonored does.
Where Dishonored succeeds, Unknown 9 unfortunately fails. Dishonored has fluent and more gameplay whereas Unknown 9 feels clunky and less meaningul. The combat system offers a much greater challenge thus reward for players who have mastered it.
Am regenerates too fast. This results in an extremely repetitive combat, mostly made of button/ability mashing or chaining.
Yes, there are the basic strategies such as pushing enemies into dynamite and causing them to die, which can be rewarding and fun to pull off. However, it's very much overused in this game, making it too convenient.
But the real power is when you can leverage certain ability chains to win every single combat encounter with minimal effort and similarly low reward. Stepping and shade are way too easy to abuse. Am regenerates so fast and can be used for OP abilities. You can always repeat the game loop of "shade/hide, stealth kill, shade/hide, stealth kill", and if you need an exit plan, reserve your "Stepping" token for any emergency that comes in your way.
It is fun to discover such strategies and to apply them, but it becomes tedious at some point. Combat feels like it's forced and unnatural, not an end in itself.
I don't mind a shallow combat system though. I have played many games with bad combat systems but at least they had great story with great writing.
One major issue I have with the combat is that this is a stealth game emphasizing player choice in different confrontations, yet the game requires you to kill every single enemy around. You cannot simply sneak past them in Chapter 2 as you could in Chapter 1.
Non-combat
Outside combat, Unknown 9 behaves a lot like Uncharted, only the parkour is much simpler and pretty much almost risk free.
The riddles are basic and not very time-consuming. Parkour is also 100% safe and there is little challenge or reward in jumping the right way.
Unknown 9 also overuses narrow passages that you have to press Y to fit between. I remember it happening over 5 times just in the first 30 minutes of gameplay, which is a bit too much.

Lack of Performance & Polish

As a reminder, I ran this game on a high-end PC by today by contemporary standards: RTX 4090, Intel i9 14th Gen, over 64 GB DDR5 RAM.
Loading new regions results in a significant stuttering, i.e. severe framerate drop. This is especially noticeable in the beginning of cinematic cutscenes.
Enemies say "she" without even knowing the enemy is a single, female person. That happened in Chapter 1, even before the Ascendents were actively looking for her, as well as in Chapter 2, where she is not the only wanted fugitive. Luther is one of them.
The graphics look very, very dated. I have compared this game to Dishonored, and yet Dishonored doesn't feel old due to good graphics quality and the unique art style.
Facial animations are rather poor for a AA game, and animations are not up to standards. Now, again, some of this wouldn't be a problem if Unknown 9 didn't have a realistic graphics style and had chosen something more stylized.


Story & World

The story's premise is that civilizations will always be destroyed, paving the way to their own destruction and the next civilization's rise. One civilization, the Sahin, sought to break the cycle. Realizing their own destruction's inevitability, they chose to give immortality to nine of them, the Unknown 9.
A magical realm coexists with our real world, called The Fold. It works similarly to the Force in Star Wars or The Fade in Dragon Age. Some people are gifted with a special ability to travel the Fold, they are called Quaestors.
In the modern civilization, some have realized the nature of civilizations, that their own is also going to end one day. In the modern day, some of them led by a man named Vincent wish to use mystical powers to break the cycle. These people seem critical of Quaestors and are persecuting them.
Great
Writing
Unfortunately, the writing is the dealbreaker for me in this game.
Reika is a great character, the only one I take no issue with. She is seemingly killed in Chapter 1.
Vincent is not a very convincing villain. He sounds very insecure, he stutters as he talks, he sounds like he's scared of the spotlight. He lacks the charisma. He is bland. He is not somebody that I actually believe to be a cult leader. He also lets Haroona go in Chapter 1, only to change his mind and decide that she should be persecuted. He is indecisive and incompetent.
The protagonist should be one of the most well-written characters, but Haroona thus far not. After losing her mentor Reika to Vincent, Haroona becomes bitter and vengeful. However, the transition from her personality in Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 is not only too rapid, it is also barely showcased in any notable way. It feels unatural, it feels like the plot needed her to be vengeful and bitter.
The enemies - why exactly do they hate us? Why is Vincent a bad guy? We have the answers from the story - Vincent leads a weird cult that blindly obeys him, he kills Reika, and he dabbles with powers beyond his own control that could spill doom for humanity. Vincent and Reika symbolize a sort of good and evil dynamic and there is great potential in this story.
But does it sound believable based on what we actually see, the writing and the animations? Not at all. The dialog is unbelievable, sanitized, and unrealistic, and Vincent comes across as that weird Reddit moderator who was bullied too much in school and is now on a power trip.


Conclusion

Unknown 9 has lots of potential, some great ideas but terrible execution. The protagonist is not compelling or likeable, dialog is bad, and I cannot take the characters or their motivations very seriously. The gameplay is nothing special either, it's too easy and unsatisfying, unrewarding. I have played many games with bad gameplay but a good story, and unfortunately, a $50 Steam game with the "Story Rich" and "Lore Rich" tags should have better writing than this.
If an action adventure game cannot persuade critics through gameplay, then perhaps it should through storytelling and amazing characters and humor. This is not the case here, unfortunately. No humor, no entertainment, not so relatable characters.
This game isn't the return to amazing linear Uncharted-like games that I had been looking forward to. I don't think it's worth $50. Recommending only on sale if you are into story-driven games and you're completely out of options.
Here are some recommendations so that you're not:
- Dishonored: AA stealth-based games with a great story and amazing, fluid gameplay
- Life is Strange 1: AA game with great story and characters, a timeless stylized look, and magical abilities. If you like a female protagonist, this is one of the best games out there.
- Uncharted: Unknown 9 but better
- Quantum Break: Linear, cinematic AAA game with time manipulation abilities and an amazing story
- Black Myth: Wukong: Great melee-based AA game if you want a challenge