Sony may have quietly acquired rights to Kena Scars of Kosmora, judging by an unusual detail in a new PlayStation sizzle reel. However, the available trademark listings and official game pages still name developer Ember Lab as the owner, leaving us with a possible deal, an editing mistake, or something that needs a bit more explaining.

As spotted by Reddit users, the promo featuring PlayStation ambassador Lisa includes footage of Kena: Scars of Kosmora. Right at the bottom of the footage, there’s the expect copyright text, except in this case it says: “Kena Scars of Kosmora is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC.”

The implication is obvious: Sony nows owns the full rights to at least Kena: Scars of Kosmora. And by extension, may own the Kena rights as a whole, or might even have bought Ember Labs.

You can find the relevant section around 28 seconds into the advert.

However, PlayStation’s own page for the sequel still attributes the game’s copyright and related trademarks to Ember Lab. The Steam listing does the same, while naming PlayStation Publishing LLC as publisher.

The publicly accessible US trademark listings on Justia and Trademarkia also continue to name Ember Lab for Scars of Kosmora. These are third-party reproductions of trademark records, though, so they shouldn’t be treated as a definitive check on whether a very recent transfer has taken place.

It’s fairly common for there to be be a delay between a deal taking effect and the public information catching up. The USPTO’s own guidance allows time for ownership changes to appear after they’re recorded, and notes that some updates require manual intervention.

On the other hand, it could be an editing mistake. Sony has managed to get important trailer text wrong before: its 2020 Demon’s Souls trailer advertised a PC version, which the company subsequently told PC Gamer was an error.

And usually you’d expect some sort of announcement if Sony had bought the Kena IP, or even the entire studio although the lack of one doesn’t rule it out.

I’ve fired off Emails to Ember Lab and the UK PR agency for PlayStation to see if I can get any confirmation on whether Sony nows owns IP or if this is all just a big mistake.

Kena: Scars of Kosmora is scheduled to launch in 2027 on PS5 and PC.