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On October 1, 2026, Ember Lab announced that Kena: Scars of Kosmora (PS5 / PC) has been delayed to 2027. The game had previously been slated for 2026. The studio’s reason: more time to polish the experience.
This is the sequel to 2021’s Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Like the first game, it’s a character-driven, linear adventure, but the scale of the world and the amount of exploration are both expanding significantly.
A story overview went out at the same time. Kena is headed for Kosmora, an island where ancient Spirit Guides built a culture all their own. The one bringing her word of it is her childhood friend Orfio. And she’ll be able to ride across the island on the back of a new spirit companion.
I put the first game on my Steam Deck and saw it through to the end. Hearing that the world is expanding with that same feel underfoot makes me genuinely happy, and I’m fine waiting another year. Here’s what the delay actually involves.
When does Kena: Scars of Kosmora come out? New window and platforms
The release window has moved to 2027. It’s coming to PS5 and PC. It had previously been set for 2026.
The reason Ember Lab gave for the delay is to polish the experience further. There’s no language in the statement pointing to trouble or a difficult development cycle.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Title | Kena: Scars of Kosmora (Japanese release title: Kena: Kosumora no Kokuin) |
| Developer | Ember Lab |
| Platforms | PlayStation 5 / PC |
| Release window | 2027 (previously planned for 2026) |
| Reason for delay | To polish the experience further |
| Previous game | Kena: Bridge of Spirits (released 2021) |
What deserves credit is that the delay came packaged with a story overview and new gameplay details. An announcement that’s nothing but “this is slipping” leaves you with nothing but anxiety. Bringing information along with it reads as proof that development hasn’t stalled.
Now the caveats. All we got was the year, 2027 — no quarter, no month. With the first game out in 2021, the gap between entries is six years at the absolute minimum. That’s a long stretch for a studio at this scale.
What’s the story in Kena: Scars of Kosmora? The island of Kosmora and Orfio
The setting is Kosmora, an island where ancient Spirit Guides built a culture of their own. Word of the island reaches Kena through her childhood friend Orfio.
Kena is a warrior who also carries the power of a healer of souls. She’s grown stronger and spends her time rushing to help others, but she hasn’t been able to face her own suffering. That’s the state she’s in when the story opens. Kosmora reportedly holds the answers she’s been searching for.
Multiple cultures are still alive on the island, and the structure has Kena meeting their people region by region while chasing down Kosmora’s past. Where the first game was about guiding the spirits of a lost village, this one shifts its axis to a search for her own answers.
That redesign makes sense to me. The Kena of the first game looked like a fully formed guide from the opening minutes, which left very little room to dig into her interior life. Starting from the premise that the healer hasn’t been healed is an honest way to move a sequel forward. Separate from my stance that fictional characters are more than enough for me, a story about a character carrying something unresolved is always the stronger one.
What’s changed since the first game? Spirit mounts and a bigger world to explore
The headline addition is the ability to ride a new spirit companion, which lets you cover the sprawling island quickly.
The spirit isn’t just transportation. It reportedly helps in combat and puzzle-solving on top of exploration. So riding doesn’t stop at cutting down travel time across the map; it touches all three pillars of the gameplay.
Structurally, the character-driven linear adventure framework from the first game stays intact. The scale of the world and the exploration on offer both grow considerably, though. This isn’t a pivot to a full open world — it’s keeping the linear skeleton while raising the density of what there is to explore.
I think that’s the right read. The first game’s virtue was that the path forward stayed legible, so the story’s pacing never fell apart. Blow that open into an open world and you’ve made a different game. Add a mount for traversal but keep the path — as someone who played the original, that’s a reassuring bit of design.
One thing that nags at me. If the mount is wrapped into combat and puzzles, the control scheme is definitely getting more complicated. Part of what made the first game work was how simple it was to control and how rarely you felt lost, so I’ll hold judgment on whether both can coexist until I have a controller in my hands.
What was Kena: Bridge of Spirits like?
Kena: Bridge of Spirits was Ember Lab’s debut game, an action-adventure released in 2021.
Ember Lab came out of an animation background, and the game earned praise for visuals that looked like an animated feature. A young spirit guide named Kena, accompanied by tiny creatures called the Rot, frees the spirits haunting a forest — and the polish on the art and audio sat at a level well beyond what “indie” implies.
The sequel landing on the same PS5 and PC and holding onto the same character-driven linear structure is close to a declaration that the studio isn’t letting go of what worked. Choosing to delay and keep polishing makes sense if this is the lane they’re staying in.
When I played the first game on a handheld, I kept stopping dead in the forest just to look at the lighting. If the studio that makes images like that says it still has polishing to do, I can wait a year.
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Kena: Scars of Kosmora delayed to 2027: everything we know
To recap: on October 1, 2026, Ember Lab announced that Kena: Scars of Kosmora (PS5 / PC) has been delayed to 2027. It had been planned for 2026. The stated reason is to polish the experience further.
It’s the sequel to 2021’s Kena: Bridge of Spirits. The setting is Kosmora, an island where ancient Spirit Guides built their own culture, and word of it reaches Kena through her childhood friend Orfio. Like the first game it’s a character-driven linear adventure, but the scale of the world and the exploration both expand. You can ride a new spirit companion to get around, and that spirit also assists with exploration, combat, and puzzle-solving (as of October 2026, based on official announcements).
Bundling a story overview and new gameplay details in with the delay announcement is a straight-up honest way to handle this. Ember Lab didn’t drop a vague “we need more polish” and vanish; it showed what it’s building. The direction of the design holds up, too. Keep the linear skeleton, widen the exploration, and layer in an interior theme about a healer who hasn’t healed herself — that’s a sequel built on an understanding of what the first game did well. That said, “2027” is a year and nothing more; we don’t even have a quarter. A gap of six-plus years since the first game isn’t trivial either. Pinning down the timing is the next item of homework.
It’s out in 2027. If you haven’t played the first one, this is the perfect window for it.
Nokko Oda
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