KENA: BRIDGE OF SPIRITS

Heading into the woods with Ember Lab’s breezy action-adventure

Whatever the opposite of nominative determinism is, it certainly applies to the Rot. In a setting such as this, the name suggests some kind of unwanted presence – a group of antagonists, perhaps, or some corrosive phenomenon choking the life out of a once flourishing forest. Not so – although, as it turns out, these adorably squat little creatures were enemies in an early version of the game. Resembling sentient chunks of licorice, the Rot have since been recast as allies, and you’ll find 100 of the blighters scattered throughout this Eastern-inspired world. You can deck them out in a range of hats you pick up over the course of your adventure, too. And they’ve got a little more personality (and autonomy) than your average woodland-spirit archetype. When Kena’s shimmying along a rock face to the next clearly marked handhold, Nathan Drake style, they pop up on nearby ledges, poke impishly out of gaps and peer inquisitively from higher ground.

It’s the kind of winning incidental detail you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a team numbering in the low double figures. It’s also a reminder of Ember Lab’s filmmaking background: the studio was founded 12 years ago and produced a range of commercials and animated shorts before recently pivoting to developing games. And it’s quietly emblematic of the game’s ambition: this feels not unlike the kind of game Rare might be making right now had Nintendo kept hold of the Twycross studio. Or, perhaps, the kind of game that occasionally sneaks out of one of Ubisoft’s smaller studios when Yves Guillemot’s back is turned.