What does it mean to help someone? Why do we help others? Are we in it for a genuine bid to make the world around us a little better? Or are we just helping them so we can feel better about ourselves? Is there even a difference? How much do our intentions really matter when the outcome is someone else’s day being a little better? These are the questions the team at Ember Lab seeks to ask with their debut game Kena: Bridge of Spirits. They don’t necessarily have the answer, but you’ll be surprised how much there is to learn in the act of asking itself.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits made a hell of an impression when it was first revealed during the July 2020 PlayStation showcase, with a trailer showing jaw-droppingly gorgeous visuals and animation. It immediately became one of the most anticipated indie darlings of the generation with unspeakable levels of hype around it, even if the studio itself has been relatively quiet about the game since then. That’s more apt than you might expect because, despite the bombastic trailers, Kena is a very small and intimate affair.

That unshaking intimacy, I think, is what will surprise people the most. The trailers as well as the early hours of Kena: Bridge of Spirits are full of music and visual motifs that feel big, sweeping, and mythic but the story this game has to tell is very gentle and soft.

You’re placed in the shoes of the eponymous Kena, a spirit guide making her way to a mysterious mountain shrine before having her journey interrupted by an abandoned village in a dying land, and a malicious presence who really doesn’t want her there. Initially tempted to ignore this and keep going, Kena is soon convinced to stay by two children looking for their lost brother. She soon gets caught up in uncovering the mystery of why this village died seemingly out of nowhere and, if possible, bring the land back to life.

The moment-to-moment gameplay loop in Kena is as arch and classical as its narrative setup. You explore areas from a third-person perspective while doing a bit of platforming and a bit of combat, occasionally stopping to solve some puzzles. It’s not terribly surprising or innovative, but it is extremely elegantly designed. The team at Ember Lab has a demonstrably adept grasp of action game design and has created a game that’s just a joy to interact with.

The controls are impeccably precise and responsive, with Kena moving, jumping, sprinting, and stopping exactly when you need her to. You have a handy double jump and a grappling hook to spice up the platforming, and levels are expertly laid out with platforming challenges weaving seamlessly in and out of your regular pathways to encourage clever and expressive use of Kena’s entire moveset. That’s a lot of words to say that the platforming looks stylish and feels good to control.

Puzzle design is similarly restrained. Mostly you use your adorable companions called the Rot, ordering them to move things around and manipulate objects from a distance. It’s a neat Pikmin-esque twist on your typical block-pushing puzzles. The late-game introduces puzzles that incorporate platforming in some fun and challenging ways but, in my experience, they never overstayed their welcome or halted the pace of exploration too egregiously outside of maybe one instance involving some candles. You’ll know it when you see it.

What really elevates Kena: Bridge of Spirits’ gameplay, however, is its combat. Like the platforming, it’s mostly a collection of modern action game design tropes. A little bit Zelda, a little bit Dark Souls, you have a bow. But the team at Ember Lab seems to have a remarkable understanding of action game design and has delivered a combat system that’s stylish and responsive, while also being incredibly economical with its mechanics. Let me explain.

A common pitfall of action game design is to give players way too many tools, moves, and combos. More often than not, a player will take a tiny handful of the many different elements and build a playstyle around those while ignoring the rest. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach but I’ve always found it a bit wasteful. Why does Spider-Man have like eight gadgets when I’d never use more than two or three in a given fight? You can actively vary up your playstyle for fun, and things like the style meter in Bayonetta or Devil May Cry make it a necessity if you want higher scores and trophies.

Personally, however, I always prefer action games that have a small core set of mechanics which interact with each other in interesting ways and allow players to express themselves without overwhelming them with options. Do a lot with a little. That is what Kena: Bridge of Spirits does. You have light/heavy attacks, a shield that can also be used to parry, a bow, and a sticky bomb with a delayed explosion. Your melee, ranged, and bomb attacks and be made stronger by infusing them with rot. Bombs can be set off with arrows, you can slow down time while aiming, and almost any move can be cancelled with a dodge-roll. It’s not terribly complex but it is fairly deep and looks amazing in action.

Ember Lab has also created an impressive menagerie of enemies, both humanoid and otherwise, that encourage full use of every tool you have at your disposal. Some are small and fast, others are larger and slower but hit harder, and both have variants that can fly. Like the gameplay elements, the enemy variety isn’t large, but it is diverse enough that mixing and matching them in different ways can lead to wildly different-feeling encounters despite the fact that you’re fighting the same handful of enemy types. I’ve never seen the “less is more” ethos taken this far, and to say the end result is impressive is an understatement.

The moment-to-moment enemy encounters make Kena a pretty enjoyable action game, but it’s the boss fights that take it to the next level. There are four major boss battles and a whole bunch of mid-bosses and minibosses, and take my word when I say these are some of the best bosses I’ve fought in any game this year. Every boss encounter has a different ‘gimmick’ but not a single one requires anything outside of the mechanics you’ve been using to defeat. I played it on the ‘Expert’ difficulty and found an utterly sublime combat experience. I cannot wait to play it again on the unlockable ‘Master’ setting. Easier modes are available for those who just want to enjoy the story.

This is a good enough point to talk about accessibility, which is one area where Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a thudding disappointment. There is no option to change text size, subtitles are painfully small, no option to change subtitle colour or add a background. You also can’t turn off or reduce the adaptive trigger effect from within the game (but you can from the PS5 system settings) and I found my hands aching quite a bit because the trigger effect for heavy attacks and bow attacks is very aggressive. There is an option to remap the controls so you can limit your interaction with the triggers. I absolutely adore this game but in terms of accessibility, it’s a total failure.

Visually, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is an absolute triumph. It’s cliche to say things like “believe the hype” but this game legitimately does look as beautiful as its trailers. Ember Lab started out as a VFX studio creating visuals for commercials and films, so it’s no surprise they’re able to deliver cutting-edge “movie quality” animation on a budget, but it’s the art direction and character design that truly make it a feast for the eyes. 

The village, forests, and fields you explore all look visually distinct from each other while still looking unmistakably like they belong in the same world. The foliage is dense and vibrant one moment, dark and foreboding the next. The lighting and volumetrics bathe each location with a moody atmosphere that perfectly complements the game’s gentle vibes.

The was solid on the platforms that I was able to test. On PS5 Kena: Bridge of Spirits offers a choice between 30fps with native 4K or 60fps with upscaled 4K. The PS4 Pro is 30fps only. Both consoles and all modes hit their target framerates without issues in my experience. I wasn’t able to test base PS4 or PC so you might want to see other reviews if you’re on one of those platforms.

Every character’s design and outfit immediately tells you the kind of person they are – mysterious, welcoming, sinister, crafty, etc. Both Kena and her Rot buddies are immediately iconic in the way mascot characters like Sailor Moon or the minions are. The same goes for your enemies, and especially the bosses, each of whom is visually distinctive and memorable in their own way. I can’t wait for the copious amounts of fan art that’s going to inevitably come from this game.

Adding to the presentation is a beautiful soundtrack composed by Theophany along with Balinese musician I Dewa Putu Berata, with additional performances by Gamelan Çudamani of Banjar Pengosekan. The music of Kena: Bridge of Spirits ranges from the familiar orchestral sound you’d expect from an animated fantasy film, but with a uniquely Balinese slant that sets it apart. A lot of the music during gameplay is understated and introspective, but the bigger story moments and boss fights are accompanied by some powerful arrangements that brought a tear to my eye just from the sheer beauty of it. I imagine this soundtrack will be in a lot of music award conversations by the end of the year.

The voice acting is also great across the board, even if there isn’t a whole lot of dialogue. As I mentioned earlier, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a surprisingly intimate game with a small handful of named characters, all of whom don’t really have too much dialogue. The story is light but broad, relying on mood and themes instead of explicitly dramatising its emotionality. Any semblance of a larger world exists far beyond the edges of the experience. There is no lore to hunt down here, no big truths to discover. It’s just vibes.

Kena herself is something of a non-character by traditional standards. She doesn’t have an arc and her motivations are vague at best. She doesn’t speak much. You frequently interact with characters who speak to their rich past lives, but Kena herself remains a cipher. The game does hint at her motivations but overall her story is about helping others reach the end of theirs. While you could call Kena underwritten, the vocal performance and direction are pitch-perfect. Voiced by newcomer Dewa Ayu Dewi Larassanti, Kena is soft-spoken and succinct. Unsure of her place in the world, but confident in her abilities. This contrasts quite well with her bold and iconic visual design and in my opinion makes her stand out among other action game protagonists.

In many ways, Kena: Bridge of Spirits felt like playing Bastion or Hollow Knight for the first time. I’m still shaken by just how many awesome, iconic things appear in a single game, nearly every aspect of which is an original creation imagined seemingly out of thin air by a team of artists for the singular purpose of telling this story. For all its grand cinematic ambitions and the comparisons to Pixar and Disney, Kena: Bridge of Spirits feels like a campfire tale, delivered in hushed tones by the dim light of dying embers, surrounded by nothing but the warm presence of your cherished friends. It’s beautiful in a sad sort of way which, if you ask me, is the best kind of beautiful.

Review code provided by Ember Lab. Kena: Bridge of Spirits is out now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC via the Epic Game Store.