Driven by a seasoned and diverse development team, the Reflector studio has created a brand-new Storyworld that they’re officially revealing today. The team brings Unknown 9: Awakening, a 3rd person narrative-driven action-adventure game, with a first look at its protagonist, Haroona, and a glimpse into her Fold abilities.
Raised on the streets of Kolkata, India and haunted by visions of her own death, Haroona struggles to understand her mysterious innate abilities to manipulate the unseen. A mentor soon helps Haroona hone her gifts, teaches her to access the mysterious hidden dimension known as The Fold and propels her on a journey to unlock the mysteries of this new realm.
“Unknown 9: Awakening is Reflector’s first game. It’s a passion project being undertaken by a small team of industry veterans that want to do things differently,” says Alexandre Amancio, CEO at Reflector Entertainment. “Our game features a complex heroine that must come to terms with who she is. The game is set in the Unknown 9 universe, a modern Storyworld that centers on humanity being on the edge of either transcendence or self-destruction.”
The broader Unknown 9 universe features interconnected media and content offerings with intersecting characters and storylines that form a rich and immersive Storyworld – including a mystery-thriller novel by bestselling author Layton Green entitled Unknown 9: Genesis, an original podcast called Unknown 9: Out of Sight, and a comic book, Unknown 9: Torment. These various offerings are all standalone products, but when experienced as a whole, they form a broader narrative and lead to a greater appreciation of the mysterious Unknown 9 universe.
In anticipation of the game’s release in 2021, fans can delve into the Unknown 9 Storyworld by visiting unknown9.com where they can participate in Unknown 9: Chapters, an interactive, community-driven experience, created by Montreal studio Alice & Smith, that lets fans decipher mysteries of the Unknown 9 universe. They will also gain access to parts of the novel, podcast, & comic book for free for a limited time.
Rouge On Blue is an alliance of talents also committed to a transdisciplinary approach to communication. The company shapes each brand as an original work of art. This expertise is based on an immersive culture of digital and storytelling to meet all the challenges of organizations. From brand strategy to marketing deployment, including the design of unusual experiences: doing what has never been done is their ultimate passion.
It is with immense pride that the talents of Rouge On Blue have participated in the Unknown 9 transmedia project for the past 18 months. A first challenge lay in the marketing positioning of this new universe in a relatively saturated industry, that of entertainment in North America.
“Believe in the unknown” quickly became the brand new brand promise, titled in French, “dive into the unknown”. Multiple strategic projects were then defined by André Vu and Lionel Pardin in order to ensure a completely original marketing campaign of the Unknown 9 universe, deployed at SXSW in Texas and globally.
All marketing projects were delivered simultaneously by Reflector’s creative and marketing teams and all the specialists of the Rouge On Blue teams.
One of these key projects quickly brought the heroes to life in an original photography project by selecting key actors and models in Quebec. The photography is co-signed by Christian Tremblay, Jeremy Henrard and supported by the creative direction of Sébastien Guy including all marketing projects. This co-creation with the Reflector team was also materialized by the original design of the future Unknown9.com platform. Finally, a 360 campaign based on the power and originality of new media was developed while respecting the brand’s foundations, its originality and its strength. Reflector‘s marketing team enabled successful communications, notably orchestrated by Noémie de Rothschild, Jérémy Leith, Elena Cesare and their colleagues.
Various Rouge On Blue specialists intervened throughout these creative developments such as Hala Tazi, Thomas Nelligan, Mélanie Franz, Christian Desrosiers, Pierre-Bernard Dow Blanchet, Marco Gervasio, Benoit Lapointe, Benoit Sicotte, Marc-André Rioux, Luc Normandin, Stéphane Hoareau, François Beauregard, Charlotte Trudeau, Nader Aboukheir etc. Additional projects included the successful development of a mysterious Unknown 9 box intended for influencers and an unusual interactive event concept symbolizing the “other” world very present in the Unknown9 multi-narrative story.
About Reflector Entertainment
Headquartered in Montreal, Reflector is a new breed of studio working with top talent to create high-quality content for a global audience. Our true transmedia approach centres around the creation of Storyworlds, expansive universes that allow us to tell richer, deeper stories that connect with fans everywhere.
About Unknown 9
Unknown 9 is about finding the extraordinary in the mundane, seeking out that which has been forgotten, and believing in the Unknown. Through Reflector’s comic books, novels, scripted podcast series, video game, interactive experience, and more, audiences can discover a Storyworld of interconnected plots and characters. It’s a universe steeped in mystery and the paranormal that connects real-world history, mythology, and conspiracy theories with its own rich lore.