€21 Million in Losses and the End of Unknown 9: Bandai Namco Liquidates Montreal Studio Reflector Entertainment
The final financial verdict has arrived from Tokyo for Bandai Namco's Canadian outpost. Following a board of directors meeting on November 10, 2026, Bandai Namco Holdings Inc. officially passed a resolution to dissolve and liquidate its Montreal-based subsidiary, Reflector Entertainment Ltd., bringing a definitive end to a six-year ownership cycle and the remnants of the Unknown 9 transmedia ambition.
Bandai Namco Books a €21 Million Extraordinary Loss
In a formal corporate disclosure filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange and signed by President Yuji Asako alongside CFO Takashi Tsuji, the Japanese publisher outlined the rationale behind the shutdown. After reviewing its internal development structure, the additional capital required to keep the studio running, and its prospects for future profitability, Bandai Namco elected to cease Reflector's operations altogether.
As a direct consequence of the closure, Bandai Namco expects to record an extraordinary loss of approximately €21 million (roughly ¥3.5 billion) on its consolidated financial statements starting in the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2027. Overseen by Director and CEO Hervé Hoerdt at the studio's 1100 Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montréal headquarters, the liquidation will be finalized once all legal and administrative procedures under Canadian law are completed.
Three Years of Heavy Deficits Exposed in Financial Filings
The regulatory filing also pulls back the curtain on the exact financial toll absorbed by the studio founded in December 2015 by Alexandre Amancio and Guy Laliberté, which Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe acquired in full in September 2020. Backed by a share capital of 46.03 million Canadian dollars, the developer posted severe consecutive deficits while trying to bring its flagship universe to market:
- Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2024: 1.62 million CAD in net sales against a net loss of 14.16 million CAD, leaving net assets at -38.51 million CAD.
- Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2025 (Unknown 9: Awakening launch window): despite booking 47.77 million CAD in net sales, operating losses hit 18.50 million CAD with a record net loss of 28.35 million CAD, while total studio assets plunged from 82.34 million CAD down to 14.44 million CAD.
- Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2026: with net sales dropping to 14.66 million CAD following steep downsizing, the studio still recorded a net loss of 1.98 million CAD, pushing its negative net worth to -89.54 million CAD.
From Unknown 9: Awakening's Collapse to an Unfinished Lifeline Project
When Bandai Namco purchased Reflector Entertainment in 2020, the Montreal team was pitched as a Western narrative spearhead built around Unknown 9, an interconnected cross-media universe spanning novels, podcasts, comic books, and a third-person action-adventure game starring Anya Chalotra as Haroona. However, when Unknown 9: Awakening finally launched on October 18, 2024 across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC, it met with lukewarm reviews and dismal player numbers.
The fallout inside the studio was swift. In November 2024, Reflector cut 18% of its staff. By January 2025, Hervé Hoerdt confirmed that sales had fallen well short of company targets, triggering a second wave of layoffs, the cancellation of the entire Unknown 9 roadmap, and a pivot toward a single unannounced project based on an existing Bandai Namco intellectual property, even as the publisher's domestic teams expanded high-profile partnerships such as Bandai Namco Studios' major development role on the Zelda: Ocarina of Time Switch 2 remake.
Ultimately, that fallback project in Montreal never materialized into a viable release. As Bandai Namco consolidates its capital around proven blockbusters, including the $200 million Elden Ring feature film co-financed with A24, Tokyo opted to pull the plug rather than sink fresh investment into a subsidiary carrying nearly 90 million Canadian dollars in negative net equity.
My Take
Watching Reflector Entertainment close its doors from here in Quebec feels like the final chapter of a cautionary tale about putting transmedia cart before gameplay horse. When Bandai Namco bought the studio in 2020, the pitch of building novels, podcasts, and lore bibles around a brand-new IP sounded ambitious on paper, yet none of that peripheral world-building mattered once players picked up the controller and found dated combat mechanics. Seeing nearly 90 million Canadian dollars in negative net assets on today's balance sheet explains why Tokyo refused to fund another production cycle, though it remains a bitter outcome for the surviving Montreal developers who spent the past year trying to rebuild around an established Bandai Namco franchise that will now never see the light of day.
SEO consultant for over 20 years and digital entrepreneur, Charles "Grimtag" is the founder of Pro-Gamer.gg, Retrocharting.com, and Gamescharting.com. A competitive gamer, streamer, and retro game collector, he has worked in the video game industry for over 15 years, notably as a consultant for leading game price comparison platforms. Passionate about real-time performance data and gaming technology, he analyzes competitive esports, gaming hardware benchmarks, and creator workflows on Pro-Gamer.gg with an authentic player perspective.
