Kena: Scars of Kosmora slips to 2027 as Ember Lab asks for more polish time

Ember Lab has officially pushed Kena: Scars of Kosmora out of 2026 and into 2027. The sequel was revealed in February with a 2026 launch window, but the studio confirmed the delay in a PlayStation Blog post, citing the need for extra time to polish what it describes as a significantly larger game than its 2021 debut.

In the post, Ember Lab says the team has been "heads down bringing Kena: Scars of Kosmora to the finish line" since the announcement trailer, and that pushing to 2027 gives them room to "really polish the expanded game experience" they want to deliver. The studio also shared more detail on the game itself. Set some time after Bridge of Spirits, Scars of Kosmora follows an older Kena traveling to the island of Kosmora in search of a cure for a mysterious affliction threatening her life. Her spirit guide staff gets shattered early on, forcing her to master Kosmora's own forgotten form of spirit guiding — an alchemy-based system tied to four elements. The island is divided into multiple regions tied to four ancient cultures, one of which was wiped out by a cataclysm before the story begins. Ember Lab describes Kosmora as a large, multi-region map that would take considerable time to cross on foot, which is why Kena now has a rideable giant wolf companion — an ancient spirit that also fights alongside her and helps solve Alchemystic puzzles.

Ember Lab is a small independent studio that broke through with Kena: Bridge of Spirits in 2021, a visually striking action-adventure that punched well above its budget in terms of production quality. Scars of Kosmora is clearly a step up in scope — a bigger open world, mounted traversal, and an expanded elemental combat system all suggest the studio is swinging for something considerably more ambitious than its debut. Delays from small studios working on bigger projects are rarely surprising, and Ember Lab's framing here — more polish, bigger scale — reads as a straightforward acknowledgment that the game needs the time.

No specific release date within 2027 has been given. The game is confirmed for PlayStation 5 and PC. Fans who have been waiting since the February reveal will have to sit tight a little longer, but the additional story and world details Ember Lab dropped alongside the delay announcement should give the community plenty to chew on in the meantime.