Kena: Scars of Kosmora will not make it out in 2026. Ember Lab confirmed today on the PlayStation Blog that the follow-up to 2021's Kena: Bridge of Spirits is moving into 2027. The studio paired the news with the most detailed look yet at the island, the story and the new companion that carries Kena across a much larger map. No specific date was given. The game is still planned for PS5, in physical and digital form, and for PC as a digital release.
Why Ember Lab Is Taking More Time
The studio's explanation is short and familiar. Since the announcement trailer in February, the team has been working to finish the game, and it now says it needs a little longer to reach the standard it wants. Ember Lab says its goal is a sequel that beats the quality of Bridge of Spirits while running at a much bigger scale, and that moving into 2027 gives it room to polish that bigger game rather than ship it rough.
That fits how the studio has worked before. Bridge of Spirits was Ember Lab's first game. Before that, the team was best known for animation and commercial work, and the debut was itself delayed before it launched in September 2021. It was a small team putting out a game with an animated-film look, and it built a loyal audience on that look. The sequel aims a lot higher, so a slip is not a big surprise. It will still sting for anyone who had pencilled it in for this holiday.
Still Linear, but Wider
The most useful detail in the update is how Ember Lab describes the structure. Scars of Kosmora stays a character-focused, linear adventure like the first game. But the studio says the scope is broader and deeper, and that the world rewards players who leave the main path. In practice that sounds like a guided story campaign with bigger, more open areas around it, not an open world.
Getting around that bigger world is where the new companion comes in. Kena now has a crystalline, dog-like spirit that she can ride. Ember Lab ties it directly to the origin of Kosmora itself. Beyond being a mount, it fights alongside Kena on foot and while mounted, and it helps solve the game's puzzles. Fans of the first game will remember the Rot, the tiny spirit creatures who swarmed obstacles and enemies. The new companion looks set to fill a similar role in the sequel, with a much larger body.
The Story: Kena's Own Scars
The story picks up with Kena as an experienced Spirit Guide, part warrior and part healer. Her job is to help the dead who cannot move on, and to fight back the Corruption their pain spreads into the land. Ember Lab frames the sequel around the limits of that work. Kena has spent years helping spirits but has done little to help the living, and almost nothing to deal with her own pain. A childhood friend, Orfio, believes the island of Kosmora holds answers for both of them, and Kena travels there to meet him.
The title points at two kinds of scars: Kena's personal ones, and the old wounds cut into the island's history. Ember Lab describes Kosmora as once home to four connected cultures, each built around one of the four elements, until a cataclysm wiped one of them out. The survivors still live by their guiding elements, but the old spiritual meaning behind them has faded. The studio says the longer that knowledge stays buried, the more dangerous things become.
Alchemystic Temples Are the Dungeons
That history drives the game's biggest set-pieces. Kosmora's ancient Spirit Guides used their own approach built on the four elements and on structures Ember Lab calls Alchemystic Temples. Those temples are the sequel's dungeons. The studio calls them complex, and says they test the player's skill and pay off with rewards that change how Kena plays. That suggests the familiar loop of finding a new tool in a dungeon and using it to open up more of the map, which suits the "linear, but reward exploration" structure described above.
Ember Lab also stresses that Kosmora is not just ruins. The island has several living cultures, each with its own history, values and conflicts. Kena's search into the past keeps running into the people of each region, and the studio says she will have to adapt to new personalities and changing situations rather than just clearing out Corruption. That leans more on characters than Bridge of Spirits did, where most of the cast were spirits of the dead.
What Happens Now
For now, there is no new date beyond "2027", and no new trailer has been confirmed alongside the delay. The Steam page lists the game as "Coming soon" and is open for wishlists, as is the PlayStation Store listing. Ember Lab ended its update by thanking fans for their patience and saying it is taking the time it needs for Scars of Kosmora to be the step forward it has in mind.
For a studio this size, choosing more polish over a holiday launch is a sensible call. Kena's look was the first game's calling card, and a bigger world makes that look much harder to keep consistent. The 2027 release calendar is already filling up quickly, though, so the next question is how early in the year Ember Lab can land it.
