![]() We wanted to make sure playing as Kena felt rewarding, responsive, and fun to control,” says Grier. “Character control was a key priority early on. While good animation was a given from Ember Lab, making sure that the game felt good to play was understandably a focus for the studio right from the start. But, ultimately we found an amazing partner in PlayStation who believed in the team and gave us tremendous support along our journey.” Even with those materials we had a lot of convincing to do and it took us about ten months to secure funding. “In addition to our pitch materials we had a strong prototype that really helped build some confidence in our team’s abilities. When we pitched Kena, we were an unproven team taking on an ambitious project and had never made a game before,” says Grier. “Pitching and fundraising is always hard. Positive associations aside, Kena was still being developed by a green developer without much experience, so making a strong prototype and pitch-deck was important when it came to getting funding, and ultimately led to a team up with PlayStation. This helped us build a bit of an identity as we were trying to share insights about the studio and build excitement around our new project.” However, we could usually mention the Terrible Fate short and people would instantly recognize the work. “Because we were new to the game development world, most people were not familiar with Ember Lab as a studio. “The success of the Terrible Fate film certainly helped when we were pitching Kena,” affirms Grier. The short was well made and actually helped the team with the recognition it needed from prospective development partners in the games industry. In its earlier days, Ember Lab was also behind a The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask fan film called ‘Terrible Fate’, which went viral back in 2016. I’d definitely put Disney animated films from the 90’s as another big influence.” “Also, personally speaking, growing up with a father who worked for the Walt Disney Company meant that not only was I immersed in fantasy, storytelling, and creative engineering from a young age, but also living abroad gave insights into different cultures, environments, and stories. “Outside of games, we were always drawn to heavily art-directed films like Lord of the Rings and Blade Runner, and the unique and often whimsical animated worlds of Studio Ghibli,” adds Grier. It’s probably unsurprising for a company that started out as an animation studio, that popular films, cartoons and anime were also key touchstones during development. Our diverse team brings a variety of influences, and you can see aspects of many cultures in our character designs and music.” ![]() “Mike, the creative director on Kena, drew on his experiences of living in Japan and exploring the countryside, which is evident in the lush, detailed environments. “On the games front, we were always drawn to adventure games such as Legend of Zelda, but we have gained a lot of inspiration from the world around us as well,” says Grier. We found inspiration in many things along the way, including eastern philosophy and art, themes of finding balance, letting go, and traditional Balinese music called Gamelan. It’s fair to say, though, we never in a million years dared to dream it would become this popular. “Making a game was a new challenge for us but we felt that we could leverage our skills in animation and VFX to create a prototype to pitch. We originally considered making Kena’s story a short film, or an animated short, but as we started to develop the characters and the storyline we began to envision gameplay mechanics that could work really well with the story we were telling. “The team is full of gamers, so we were naturally attracted to games because they allow for such an immersive experience. “The studio’s original background was in commercials and VFX, but we’ve always wanted to tell our own unique stories,” explains Grier. Thankfully, the team possessed a great deal of passion for games that could be harnessed to drive towards their goal. That desire to create a story driven adventure game meant a fast transition for the team, away from the creation of animation for external clients in other industries, and into a game development firm in its own right. Indeed, the combat is not for the faint of heart, and it should give more experienced gamers some exciting and memorable moments.” ![]() Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a story driven adventure game, with rich environments to explore and challenging combat. ![]() “All in all, we stayed true to that pitch. “We set out to make a story-focused, action adventure game in a smaller but AAA quality package, and we pitched an experience that was digestible – something you could complete in a weekend, but with high quality visuals and really fun gameplay,” says Josh Grier, COO and co-founder at Ember Lab.
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