Kena: Scars of Kosmora Pushes Back to 2027 as Ember Lab Details Its Story
Ember Lab is delaying Kena: Scars of Kosmora into 2027 for extra polish, and used the news to detail the sequel's story, setting and a new spirit companion.
Ember Lab is giving itself another year with Kena: Scars of Kosmora. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, the studio confirmed the sequel to 2021's Kena: Bridge of Spirits is moving from its original 2026 window into 2027, trading a faster launch for more time to finish a game the team says has grown well beyond the scope of its predecessor. Rather than leave fans with just a delay notice, Ember Lab used the post to lay out the clearest picture yet of Kosmora's story, its world and the new companion riding alongside Kena.
A bigger game needs more time
Ember Lab says it wants Scars of Kosmora to clear the bar set by Bridge of Spirits, which won over players and critics with its blend of Pixar-style visuals and Soulslike combat. "Pushing our release into 2027 gives us the ability to really polish the expanded game experience we want to deliver," the studio wrote, framing the delay as a trade worth making rather than a sign of trouble. Part of that ambition comes from deeper backing through PlayStation Studios than Ember Lab had on the original game, which the small team partly self-funded through Kickstarter before Bridge of Spirits became a surprise hit and later a PlayStation Plus staple. Kena: Scars of Kosmora is still confirmed for PS5, with both physical and digital editions, alongside a digital release on PC.
A Spirit Guide who has run out of answers
The story picks up after the events of Bridge of Spirits, with Kena now a seasoned Spirit Guide who has spent years helping the dead move on by fighting back the corruption their unresolved pain leaves behind. Ember Lab says she's begun to hit her limits, having rarely turned her abilities toward helping the living, including herself. Her childhood friend Orfio believes the mysterious island of Kosmora holds answers about her past and her future as a guide, and Kena's search for him sets the sequel's journey in motion.
Four elements, living cultures, one fractured staff
Kosmora's own Spirit Guides once built an entire practice around four elements and a network of Alchemystic Temples, with four interconnected cultures each organized around a guiding element before a cataclysm wiped one of them out. That history still shapes the island's surviving societies, and Kena will need to learn Kosmora's forgotten, elemental take on Spirit Guiding after her staff is fractured early in the story. Ember Lab is also framing the island as more than a backdrop of ancient ruins: Kosmora is home to several living cultures, each with its own history and struggles, and Kena's path means repeatedly colliding with how that past still shapes the present rather than following a single linear route the way Bridge of Spirits' Forgotten Forest did.
A new companion for a bigger world
Exploring Kosmora on foot would take a while, which is why Kena now travels with a crystalline canine companion tied directly into the plot and the island's mysteries. Ember Lab describes the creature as more than a mount: it fights alongside Kena both mounted and on foot, and helps solve the game's Alchemystic puzzles. The studio frames the bond between the two as central to the sequel, with Kena and her new ally working to heal both her own scars and the ones running through Kosmora itself.
What's next for Scars of Kosmora
Beyond the story details, Ember Lab kept specifics light on release timing within 2027, patch cadence or a next trailer, but the post makes clear the studio sees the extra development time as essential to delivering on the scope it has promised since the February reveal. Wishlisting is open now on PlayStation and PC storefronts, and Kena: Scars of Kosmora remains set to close out the story Bridge of Spirits started, just a year later than fans had originally hoped.
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Theo covers the business of games for Gamers6: studio moves, platform strategy and the press releases nobody else finishes reading. He files most days before the coffee is cold.
