Bandai Namco subsidiary and Unknown 9: Awakening developer Reflector Leisure has canceled an in-development challenge and laid off quite a few employees following what it calls the “failure” of its first sport.
In a LinkedIn submit, 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” with reference to gross sales efficiency, and that the world of the sport would not “warrant any additional exploration” consequently.
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 would 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 mentioned challenge into query in that case).
Reflector is presently engaged on a sport “based mostly on an present Bandai Namco IP”, and Hoerdt says growth on that challenge is “shaping up very effectively”, though naturally, he would not say what it is likely to be.
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 yr on account of Elden Ring growth Shadow of the Erdtree‘s robust efficiency.
The corporate has additionally lately 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’ll be able to, for those who’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 detrimental about it than many.