Kena: Scars of Kosmora won’t be arriving in 2026 as originally hoped by its creators. In a new PlayStation Blog post, Ember Lab‘s Game Writer Thomas Varga and COO Josh Grier confirmed that the studio is pushing the sequel’s release into 2027, and shared a closer look at its story and setting to soften the blow.
The reasoning is the same as what we’ve heard countless other times from other studios: Ember Lab says it wants to deliver a game that exceeds the quality of its 2021 debut, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, at a much larger scale, and needs a bit more time to polish that expanded experience. The game remains slated for PlayStation 5 (both physical and digital) and PC (digital only).
It’s worth noting that Scars of Kosmora is published by PlayStation Publishing, according to its Steam listing. That’s a change from Bridge of Spirits, which Ember Lab published itself, and makes the confirmed PC version notable given Sony’s recent retreat from bringing its single-player games to the platform.
Scars of Kosmora picks up the story with Kena as an accomplished Spirit Guide, a role that the developers describe as equal parts warrior and spiritual healer. When the dead can’t move on peacefully, their pain manifests as Corruption that infects the land, and Spirit Guides fight it back to reach the root of the problem.
But Kena is starting to find her limits. She has helped the spirits of the dead, but has yet to explore what Spirit Guiding could mean for the living, and she has always tended to other people’s pain rather than her own. According to previously released material, she’s also seeking a cure for an affliction of her own. That’s where Orfio, a childhood friend of the protagonist, comes in. He believes the mysterious island of Kosmora holds the answers they’ve both been searching for, and so Kena sets out to meet him.
Kosmora’s ancient Spirit Guides developed their own approach, built around the four elements and a network of Alchemystic Temples. Four interconnected cultures once thrived across the island, each guided by its own element, until a mysterious cataclysm wiped out one of them. The surviving cultures still live by their guiding elements, but their spiritual meaning has faded into the island’s distant past, and the longer that knowledge stays buried, the more dangerous things become.
Those temples are central to the game. As complex dungeon experiences, they’re designed to challenge players’ skills and offer transformative rewards that drive Kena’s adventure forward.
A New Culture and Companion
Kosmora isn’t only about ruins, though. The island is home to several living cultures, each with its own history, values and struggles, and Kena’s investigation into the past will bring her into contact with characters across every region.
Structurally, Ember Lab describes Scars of Kosmora as a character-focused, linear adventure like its predecessor, but with a broader, deeper scope and plenty to find for players who stray off the beaten path.
To get around that larger world, Kena can now count on a crystalline canine companion, an ancient spirit tied to the island’s origins. It serves as a mount, fights alongside Kena both on its back and on foot, and also helps solve Alchemystic puzzles.
It’s supposed to be one of several elemental Spirit Companions Kena will team up with throughout the game. Their powers grow over the course of the adventure, and Kena harnesses them for puzzles, combat and traversal, alongside new elemental abilities and Spirit Guide techniques building toward epic boss fights.
Are you more excited about these new details or disappointed about the delay of Kena: Scars of Kosmora? Let us know below!
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief.
In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech’s gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews.
Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications.
His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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