Bandai Namco subsidiary and Unknown 9: Awakening developer Reflector Leisure has canceled an in-development challenge and laid off a variety of workers following what it calls the “failure” of its first sport.
In a LinkedIn publish, Reflector CEO Herve Hoerdt says he is “made the choice to not greenlight additional work” on a challenge that was within the “conceptualization part”, thus “terminating this growth line”. In layman’s phrases, that successfully appears to imply he is canceled an ongoing growth challenge.
Hoerdt places the cancellation right down to the “failure” of Reflector’s “bold and brave first challenge”, which he describes as a “new IP with a wealthy transmedia universe”. He’s, after all, referring to Unknown 9: Awakening, which is Reflector’s first (and, up to now, solely) sport.
The CEO goes on to confess that Unknown 9: Awakening “did not come close to the corporate expectations” on the subject of gross sales efficiency, and that the world of the sport does not “warrant any additional exploration” because of this.
He says that the canceled challenge persevering with “wouldn’t have been sustainable” for Reflector, however that it’s going to lead to “redundancies”, though he does not state what number of.
Going ahead, Hoerdt says Reflector will work on a single challenge at a time, an strategy that is additionally been espoused by the likes of Rime developer Tequila Works (though that firm’s insolvency places the way forward for stated challenge into query in that case).
Reflector is at present engaged on a sport “primarily based on an present Bandai Namco IP”, and Hoerdt says growth on that challenge is “shaping up very nicely”, though naturally, he does not say what it is perhaps.
Information of the Reflector layoffs, and of Unknown 9: Awakening‘s failure, comes shortly after Bandai Namco elevated its gross sales projections for the 2024-25 fiscal 12 months because of Elden Ring enlargement Shadow of the Erdtree‘s sturdy efficiency.
The corporate has additionally not too long ago loved success with combating sport Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, which managed to high three million gross sales in a single day.
As for Unknown 9: Awakening itself, you possibly can, should you’re so inclined, try the motion journey sport proper now on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. For what it is price, our reviewer Erren was decidedly much less destructive about it than many.
