Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Developers
	Ember Lab
Engines
	Unreal Engine 4
Release dates
Windows	September 21, 2021
Reception
Metacritic	83
OpenCritic	81
IGDB	84
Taxonomy
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Adventure
Art styles	Stylized
Themes	Fantasy

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a third-person action-adventure game developed and published by Ember Lab. It is the first title of the studio.

Announced on June 11, 2020 and initially set to become available later in 2020, the game was delayed twice, and subsequently to its final release date of September 21, 2021.

In June 2021, participants of the Tribeca Festival were offered a chance to play a time-limited demo of the game via online streaming.

The full version of the game was released for Windows as a timed exclusive on Epic Games Store.

The Steam version released on September 27th, 2022 along with the Anniversary Update content.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Epic Games Store		DRM-free when a shortcut is made to the executable with the -EpicPortal command line argument appended to the Target URL.
Steam		Digital Deluxe Edition is also available.

Version differences

Digital Deluxe Edition includes a golden Rot skin, a unique silver Kena staff, an exclusive Kena skin, and the digital soundtrack.

Pre-orders included celebration hats for the Rot.

Essential improvements

Skip intro video

Delete or rename the intro video file
Navigate to <path-to-game>\Kena\Content\Movies\ Delete or rename EmberLogo.mp4. A game update is likely to restore the file.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Kena\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1954200/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Kena\Saved\SaveGames\
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1954200/pfx/

Photo mode screenshots location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Kena\Pictures\

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Epic Games Launcher
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics settings

Advanced graphics settings

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor			Hor+ gameplay and cutscenes after the Anniversary Update. Some cutscenes remain pillarboxed for which the ultrawide patcher is required.
Ultra-widescreen			Hor+ Gameplay and Cutscenes after the Anniversary Update.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Scales with the Textures setting.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Sharpened TAA with its quality controlled by the Post Processing Quality setting..
High-fidelity upscaling		DLSS 2.0
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		FMVs are at 60 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the engine page to force native HDR output, or the glossary page for other alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)

The game engine may allow for manual configuration of the game via its variables. See the Unreal Engine 4 page for more details.

Field of view (FOV)

Use Cheat Engine table by K4sh

Use the latest version of the Universal Unreal Engine 4 Unlocker to modify the FOV in real time
Follow the instructions to enable the developer console in the game. Enter FOV 90 where 90 is the desired field of view value. Entering FOV without a value will reset it.

Input

Controls settings

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Some actions are not remappable. See Remapping for a workaround.
Mouse acceleration		No acceleration option.
Mouse sensitivity		Labeled Camera Sensitivity. See Input sensitivity for unexposed values.
Mouse input in menus		Backing out of a menu requires keyboard use.
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Y and X axes inversion toggles.
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping		Some actions are not remappable. See Remapping for a workaround.
Controller sensitivity		Labeled Camera Sensitivity and shared with mouse sensitivity. See Input sensitivity for unexposed values.
Controller Y-axis inversion		Y and X axes inversion toggles shared with the mouse.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts		Xbox Controller Icons selectable in the settings.
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers
PlayStation button prompts		PS4 and PS5 Controller Icons selectable in the settings.
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes	Wired

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback		Vibration Function toggle within the Game settings.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

• 

  Remapping

• 

  Game settings

Remapping

Edit a configuration file to remap buttons unexposed in the game

Navigate to the configuration file(s) location. Open GameUserSettings.ini in a text editor. Find the desired action by its ActionName or the key assigned to it. Change the text that follows Key= to the desired button code. Save the file. For example, (ActionName="UI_OptionsRestoreDefaults",Key=R) refers to the Restore Defaults action assigned to R. Changing it to (ActionName="UI_OptionsRestoreDefaults",Key=Tab) remaps the action to Tab ↹. A simple way to get the right key code is to launch the game, use it to assign the wanted key to a known action, then copy and paste this key code to the desired action in the config file.

Input sensitivity

Set the mouse and controller sensitivity to any value beyond the game settings through a config file
Navigate to the configuration file(s) location. Open GameUserSettings.ini in a text editor. Press Ctrl+F or use the search function to find LookSensitivity=. Modify its numerical value as preferred and save the file.

Audio

Audio settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Master, SFX, Music, Dialogue, Cutscene volume sliders.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Switching focus off the game pauses it, which also mutes it. The main menu is not muted.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Arabic				Fan translation by AR Team, download.
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian				Fan voice-over by Mechanics VoiceOver, download.
Spanish

Issues fixed

No buttons in main menu after game launch

Launching the game for the first time may result in it displaying no menu buttons.

Tab out of the game and check the web browser for the Epic Online Services login prompt to go through.
Ensuring that the browser is closed before launching the game may be helpful in causing the prompt to appear.

Controller stick drifting

Some controller users reported drifting when using the analog sticks.

Modify a game configuration file to adjust the controller deadzones

Navigate to the configuration file(s) location. Open Input.ini in a text editor. Add the following lines and save: [/Script/Engine.InputSettings] AxisConfig=(AxisKeyName="Gamepad_LeftX",AxisProperties=(DeadZone=0.250000,Sensitivity=1.000000,Exponent=1.000000,bInvert=False)) AxisConfig=(AxisKeyName="Gamepad_LeftY",AxisProperties=(DeadZone=0.250000,Sensitivity=1.000000,Exponent=1.000000,bInvert=False)) AxisConfig=(AxisKeyName="Gamepad_RightX",AxisProperties=(DeadZone=0.250000,Sensitivity=1.000000,Exponent=1.000000,bInvert=False)) AxisConfig=(AxisKeyName="Gamepad_RightY",AxisProperties=(DeadZone=0.250000,Sensitivity=1.000000,Exponent=1.000000,bInvert=False)) Modifying the DeadZone values is possible.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11, 12	Selectable in the Graphics settings.

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX
Audio	Wwise

Unlock Master difficulty

The highest difficulty of the game is not available until after finishing it.

Modify a configuration file to unlock the Master difficulty
Navigate to the configuration file(s) location. Open GameUserSettings.ini in a text editor. Press Ctrl+F or use the search function to find bHasUserBeatGame=False Replace it with bHasUserBeatGame=True and save the file.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i3-3220 AMD FX-6100	Intel Core i7-6700K AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
System memory (RAM)	12 GB	16 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	25 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti AMD Radeon R7 360 2 GB of VRAM DirectX 11 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 8 GB of VRAM DirectX 12 compatible

A 64-bit operating system is required.