Digital Foundry : Kena Bridge of Spirits from Ember Labs finally released this week, initially capturing our attention at the PlayStation 5 gameplay reveal event last year thanks to a visually fresh, appealing presentation. Based on Unreal Engine 4, Kena shines through the artistic accomplishments of the developer, backed by a solid game design and mostly solid performance. However, underlying issues with UE4 do peek through - and they're especially evident on the PC version of the game.
There's been plenty of news about Xbox games moving over to PlayStation recently, but how about one coming the other way? Well, 2021's Kena: Bridge of Spirits has just been ESRB rated for an upcoming Xbox Series X|S release
Console exclusives are exclusive to certain consoles … really not hard to comprehend unless you’re a salty gamer fighting an imaginary console war.
I just got this game on the PS+ Catalogue to redeem some points on the rewards program, it’s not mindblowing, but it’s a very pretty action adventure game. Not thrilled about it but i pick it up randomly sometimes when i take a break from my usual fare.
It may be "exclusive" to a certain console but it's still multiplatform because it's on more than one platform.
Kena is owned,developed & published by Ember Labs studios & it was a "limited" PS console exclusive. PS having it as a console exclusive for 3 years is enough time to pass it on to another console platform.
It's just hack journalism saying 3rd party exclusives going to other competing platforms is the same as 1st party. Shall we say that Nintendo games are going to other consoles since No More Heroes 3, Octopath and Monster Hunter Rise got ported to other consoles? Dumb.
It's also called fake News journalism or bad journalism, misinformation...so many names for it.
Okay might be showing my age, but back in the days, way back it was called yellow journalism.
So defensive lol..
If we're so concerned about third party now, can we apply the same logic to games like FF7 Rebirth, Stellar Blade & Helldivers which I regularly see people on here spouting as First Party or "Sony Games"
@DOM
If you want to say sea of thieves going to PS5 is the same as Kena going Xbox then go crazy.
It's as dumb as saying Horizon going to xbox is the same as Cuphead going to PS5.
Microsoft began buying timed exclusives and timed DLC starting with GTA IV back on Xbox 360. This didn't used to be a practice until then. I don't ever recall this being a thing
Pretty sure the PS2 gen had 3rd party exclusives. Panzer dragoon orta, Jet set , dino crisis 3, steel batallion for xbox. Nintendo had Capcom exclusivity for a bit on RE4, Viewtiful Joe and REmake. Onimusha, Gta, Final Fantasy for Sony.
Probably way more than that.
PS1 gen as well...but most exclusives then were developers chosing cartridge(N64) over CD. You could bring up the Saturn but i believe it just didn't get ports because it had a horrible launch in the states.
Not even remotely true or maybe you're too young . This practice has been going on since Sega, nintendo and PS1 days.
Not true. Timed exclusivity existed before Xbox even entered the console business. Sony did it, Nintendo did it, and Sega likely did as well.
I recall this was a practice as early as the NES however Nintendo wrote in their licensing agreement if you want to make games for NES they must be exclusive to the console. Given the closest competitor at the time was the master system they were the only real act in time and the Atari had bombed hard that gen. Nintendo would also threaten to stop supplying games to retailers if they sold unlicensed third party games which and retailers would then be faced with the choice of hey do we sell this tengen garbage or so we want Mario easy choice there was a lot of legal battles in those days.
Also noteable in the more modern era was the Capcom 5 Nintendo got 5 exclusive titles from Capcom.
In the PS1 and N64 era exclusive games were mainly because the system architectures were vastly different it was a huge undertaking to port a game I done recall either company paying for exclusivity and the biggest name games often found their way onto both platforms with bespoke editions like quake 2.
Microsoft definitely threw their wallet around that generation while Sony publicly stated they believed they no longer had to do this and their first party was strong enough to carry them which they went back on pretty quickly after Microsoft walked away with timed exclusive GTA and cod content that really hurt them.
what's that one Sony did before Kena that was like Ninetndo's pikimin, I forget, I missed that and it looked fun, might try to grab on sale, it would be my second ONLY ever digital purchase, (as I don't think it was ever physical as its a small game)
okay smartie pants, "one sony paid for exclusivity, like they did with Kena"
found it anyway, was called "Bugsnax"
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
I don't think Pinkman and Kena are really the same thing. At the end of the day though, Ember Labs has a really talented animation team, but as game designers they're lacking. It was a really pretty game but, man was it frustrating! Areas you thought you could go but we're blocked off, poor level design, probably what Hellblade II is gonna end up being
IMO the best way to play is to choose the easy mode first up to at least the first and second bosses then choose to restart on a harder dificulty with the hardest difficulty being very challenging.
Actually playing on easy mode allows you to find all the items including the "rot" (use your mask to look for footprints) without being that frustrated. By doing this you can always look at your easy saved game map to find to find all items if you eventually play on a harder difficulty.
Amongst all the new PlayStation 5 releases, it's easy to miss some gems. Here's Chit Hot's picks for the seven most underrated games on PS5.
Returnal: such a great game that got some weird misinformation in the press. Like, if you don't know why lie?
It’s a 10/10 for me. It doesn’t get enough love for sure. It’s way better than the rest of the games they listed except for Demons Souls.
Returnal was a masterpiece. That's what media outlets do, they misinform. Can't wait to see Housemarques next game. Got Returnal day 1. Gonna play it again now lol.
Kena was a good fun game. Also is Demon Souls really underrated? Stuck on the King🙄. Idk how this remake was received but I would think great. Anyway Demon Souls is a masterpiece as well.
@Raven Yeah. Demon's Souls was great on PS3 and PS5. Wonderful both times. I have no problem with a remaster that comes 2 (or more) generations later.
To this day one of the best games on PS5. One of the best uses of dualsense too (after Astro).
Returnal: Yes.
Destruction AllStars: Hell no.
List lost all credibility right there.
Massive flop.
Returnal is still my favourite PS5 game. A really interesting concept and a fun as hell roguelike.
Gamesindustry writes: "Ember Lab has been around since 2009, starting out as a company specialising in commercial animation and digital content. But a decade later it would make its mark in video games with the release of Kena: Bridge of Spirits.
So how did its co-founders, COO Josh Grier and chief creative Michael Grier, go from wanting to become filmmakers to making a game that would catch the attention of Sony just as it was preparing to unveil PlayStation 5?
Speaking to the two softly spoken brothers at Develop, the difference between media matters less than being able to tell a story with original content."
Loved the game!
Wish there was a sequel or something new coming from them!
Been really quiet for a long time now!
there already working on its next Ps5/PC title.. just saying Sony should give them Jak and Dex.... IDK i feel they would do a really good job with it or sly cooper i started streaming sly cooper to my Ps5 and man.... i miss those kinds of games tbh u dont see many like it anymore!
As long as they keep the gameplay simple without sacrificing the challenge, it would be a good match.
Though if they did end up making a Jak and Daxter game, I would hope Naughty Dog would at least act as consultants. Even the thought of a new Jak and Daxter without ND's input makes me anxious.
Sly would be good too. Neither franchise gets the love it deserves these days.
@Toxic Yeah I miss Sly cooper im glad the PS PLUS streaming is much much better for simple titles like this i still have problems with game like Fear and Heavenly sword i hope Sony fixes this more one day
He nit picked the shit out of this game
Haha
Wow
Almost feel like this dude played a completely different game than I did
I think he contradict himself at the beginning of the video, he start mentioning not too much tech to be seen here, and then he goes into talking of lots of new details for this game that sets is apart from other Unreal Engine games, so yeah not too much tech to be seen here right?, just Pixar quality realtime gameplay that's all 😄
UE4 always had some issues with stutter and it has shit AA, TAA is terrible but on PC you can disable that in the engine.ini settings, and use reshades SMAA. Looks the best on PC as always.
I'm playing it now at 1080p 360hz (wish it hit 360fps 😁) everything maxed using dx11 with reshade and getting fps in the 100s with some dips in the 90s cause of the engine, using a 3070 + 5950x overall the game is fun so far😁
The game looks really nice, but the controls are not that good on PC.
Might look fine in PC but without the full Dualsense integration it's missing a key element.