This guide will show you the best graphics settings for Kena: Bridge of Spirits for lower-mid-range gaming PCs. You will have a smoother gaming experience and it could also help you eliminate various performance issues, if you have any of course.
The best graphics settings for Kena
After being delayed three times from 2020, Kena: Bridge of Spirits finally launched. I’m not sure if this game was one of the most anticipated of 2021 or not. But it definitely was for me. Kena was announced in early 2020, and I wanted to get my hands on this game ever since. The game looked extremely impressive back then, it looks extremely impressive now. In fact, I can safely say that Kena: Bridge of Spirits is one of the most beautiful games I have seen to date.
I played Biomutant a lot and loved it. Kena brings a similar, but more refined, artistic style. The animations are fluid and the gameplay is fluid. The game is based on Unreal Engine 4, so there is nothing to complain about in the graphics department. Typically, third-person action-adventure titles like these don’t release as much on PC. Kena is undoubtedly a breath of fresh air in this world full of FPS titles.
In general, the game works very well on the PC platform. I tested the game on three different systems and did not experience any unnecessary hang or freeze. But, as we all know, not everyone is sitting with a high-end gaming rig. And this is where PC gaming shines. You don’t always need expensive hardware to play as you can tweak the graphics settings of the game you want to play and then get the best performance even if you don’t have a high-end game. gaming platform. Let’s now look at the graphics setup guide for Kena:
Graphics Settings
- Window mode: full screen (It is always recommended to run full screen, because it does not lose performance)
- Resolution: 1920 × 1080 (This setting would also give you good performance at 1440p. But the experience will not be as smooth)
- Graphics API: DirectX 12 (I checked DX11 and DX12 thoroughly, but didn’t see any difference. However, switch to DirectX 11 if the game crashes)
- VSync: off (Crashes the game at 30fps after a scene, for some reason)
- Quality: Custom
- Visible rot: medium (Very demanding setting. Set this to low if you are using a GPU similar to the GTX 1050 ti)
- Screen percentage: 100% (Don’t play around with this. Lowering this could make the game blurry)
- FPS Limit: 60 (This would reduce stuttering and shaky frame rate issues by a huge margin)
- Depth of field: limited (Has minimal effect on performance. This is more of a personal preference)
- Motion blur: off (I don’t like it so I don’t use it. Personal preference)
- Volumetric Fog: Medium (A demanding setting. You will find many VFs in Kena. Set this to low if you are using a GPU similar to the GTX 1050 ti)
- Ambient Occlusion: Medium (Low, makes the game look really tasteless)
- Post-Processing Quality: High (I didn’t see any difference in performance between High and Low)
- Textures: Medium (Maintains a good balance between images and performance)
- Foliage: Medium (Medium is good. High and Ultra makes the game look a bit sharp)
- Shadows: Medium (Shadows are demanding in Kena, because almost everything in the game has its shadow. But lowering this further will make the game look bad)
Test system specifications
- Graphics processor: Zotac GTX 1650
- CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x
- RAM: 16GB DDR4 3200mhz
- Hard Drive: 2 TB 7200 rpm
- SSD: WD Blue 1TB
- Monitor resolution: 1920 × 1080
- Graphics Driver: Nvidia Game Ready Driver v472.12
Kena: Bridge of Spirits Performance Analysis
| Minimum FPS (1% low) | Average FPS | Maximum FPS |
| 35 FPS | 51 FPS | 60 FPS (locked) |
First, let’s take a look at what the game looks like with the settings given above:
I tested Kena on three of my systems and the game ran flawlessly on all three. The GTX 1650, RTX 2060 and RTX 3070 were used for my tests. I don’t think it makes sense to mention the performance of the RTX 2060 and 3070 here, because the game runs smoothly at maximum settings on these GPUs. The GTX 1650 didn’t disappoint either.
Yes, I did experience some stuttering at times. But that is very common with games made in UE4. Every time you enter a completely new area, the game stutters for a fraction of a second. FPS drops become more prominent right after you destroy a Deadzone Heart, or there are multiple enemies on your screen. But that’s totally understandable, since a number of effects occur at the same time.
Overall I would say that Kena: Bridge of Spirits is pretty optimized and you shouldn’t have any problem playing this game on low-end GPUs like the GTX 1050 ti.
If you want, you can watch my performance video for Kena: Bridge of Spirits. The game runs on an RTX 2060 paired with a Ryzen 5 5600X.
