Kenshi

I started off on the 8th of April with 7.7 hours, and seeing as how I've hit 77 over the past month, I'd figured I would just say...

The game is amazing. I was gonna do a whole monologue about my adventures in it, and how much I've enjoyed that, but honestly? I feel like 70 hours over a month kinda speaks for that.
Usually the passion for a game burns out at arooound 30-50 hours, it's happened plenty times before in all manner of genres... I've been planning my next playthrough and I don't even feel half down with this one. AND I'M OVER 100 DAYS IN! This game has made me feel the joy of immersion, of roleplaying, of a grand vast world, and all the lore, people, and places in it! The THRILL of losing, just to get up and hit back, progressing through a world that wants you dead, and surviving!
...
And I hate that. I really, really hate that. I'm at a time in my life where I've decided that it's time to move on from gaming, to let go of doing nothing with my life and chase passions, chase success! Do things that'll make me proud of myself and what I can do... AND THIS GAME IS GETTING IN THE WAY OF THAT
Goddamn you Chris Hunt, you spent a decade chasing your dream just so you could SHATTER MINE!

...But yeah, all in all, one of the most finely crafted and enjoyable games I've ever played. Janky as fuck, and the AI WILL make you angrier than it should, but it's addicting, vast, open, and one of the best RPGs I've ever played!
Huh, I guess I did monologue there, didn't I?

one of a kind game, super fun if a bit rough around the edges
(definitely requires a certain neurodivergence to consider playing)

keep an eye out for kenshi 2!

Imagine Age of Empires mixed with Fallout New Vegas plus a bit of City Skylines and the Sims thrown in. There's so much to do and so many ways to do it, the game is a steal at $30. There's plenty of jank and it can be brutally difficult when you're just starting, but those things become tools for success once you get it.

kenshi is the best RPG sandbox game ever created while at the same time being the ugliest and most horribly optimized games at the same time. kenshi is the rare case of a game being completely made with love and intention of being a fun game to play. its frustrating in all the right ways and the lack of pure story leads to some of the most intimate stories made by a game system.

if you are wary of the price and the graphics I urge you to give it a try regardless, after a time the graphics really start to seem charming. even still if you are apprehensive id recommend to read up on the making of kenshi 2 and get really excited for the gaming landscape to change all over again!

KENSHI is an incredible game about getting your shit pushed in over and over again until you're able to stop it

𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝
Hours Played: 21.9 hrs

𝘒𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪 isn’t just a game - it’s an experience. A raw, brutally honest sandbox where the world owes you nothing and survival is entirely up to you. From the moment you spawn in this harsh, post-apocalyptic wasteland, it becomes clear: you’re not the hero, you’re not special, and you will absolutely get your teeth kicked in. And that’s what makes it incredible.

This game offers true freedom. You can be a lone wanderer, a bounty hunter, a slaver, a rebel, a farmer, a warlord, or just some guy getting beat up by goats. There’s no hand-holding. No golden path. Just you, your decisions, and the consequences. Building your crew from nothing, watching them grow stronger, lose limbs, and gain scars - it’s one of the most rewarding progression systems I’ve ever experienced in a game.

The world of Kenshi is massive, mysterious, and unforgiving. Every location feels handcrafted with lore buried in its ruins, factions clashing, and survival hanging by a thread. The stories you create are yours alone. Maybe your cook became a legendary swordmaster. Maybe your squad starved in the desert. Maybe you accidentally led a cannibal horde to your own outpost. It’s all part of the magic.

Visually, it’s not the prettiest game on the market, but what it lacks in polish, it makes up for tenfold in depth and ambition. This game doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is: a brutal, player-driven simulation with limitless potential for storytelling.

Kenshi is one of those rare gems that respects the intelligence and patience of its players. It doesn’t hold back. It doesn’t care if you’re ready. And because of that, every success you earn feels earned.

If you're looking for a game that lets you carve out your own story in a world that feels alive (and hostile), Kenshi is an absolute must-play.

Great game, i could play this game for days and not get bored love it. Progression is also very balanced, if you dont use bugs/"exploits" (ex: stealing Catlon and grinding off him).

Love the old school vibe, I also love HARD ass games and this definently fits the HARD grind! Love the game so far, my experiences have been to funny this far and cant wait to see what else happens

Literally the only game you can go from level 1 crook to level 100 mafia boss


P.S Game is really unique and immersive as hell

Fantastic game with plenty of player freedom, quickly become one of my favourites and I adore the fact that the only story that matters in the game is the one you make for yourself. 10/10 Would be enslaved again.

One of the best games I have ever played, period.
In Kenshi, noone is thriving, nobody has any prior knowledge of history and everyone is fighting for survival.

It's a super brutal survival sandbox game that basically throws you into the game and for the most part giving you little to no hints on what to do in a completely mysterious and dangerous world. While this may sound like a bad thing, this forces you to improvise and discover the environment and world on your own accord rather than following a linear storyline. Letting you instead, create your own story. You and your allies in Kenshi can effect the world in many ways such as killing or capturing prominent figures of power or even trying to abolish the cruel trade of slaves but you can never truly fix the world you live in with rampant slavery, armies of cannibals and extreme racism and division. You can only make it more bearable.

There are many many things you can do in this game, even in the very beginning. You can either become a scavenger and loot corpses and dying creatures from fights to survive. Become a lowly thief and steal from the rich or poor for any scraps you can sell or eat. You can even become a bounty hunter and hunt notorious targets for large sums of money and so much more. This game is the ultimate sandbox and lets you create your own path with your actions changing the world as you go.

Kenshi has an excellent modding scene and several challenges you can take up at that which makes the game extremely replayable with more and more mods coming out everyday. Even if your first initial runs don't go well, just keep trying and overcoming your struggles. Eventually you will prevail and maybe one day, things won't be so bad.

This game is so much more than what it seems at first.

The learning curve is a bit steep at first but once you know what you're doing, it's a deep, complex, fun, engaging and properly unique experience.

I didn't get it
I tried 4 different times to get into the game and each time i just wandered around and gotten beaten to death or unconscious or enslaved and lost interest as i had no clear goal or any idea what to do
But then i stuck to it all these years later, mining to get money, getting more guys, getting beaten half to death over and over, understanding the game more and more as time went on
Now i have a successful settlement with lots of people i give jobs to and make my own gear and cactus rum, while my main dude is so jacked and powerful from almost dying a thousand times that i send him out to sneak around and knock people out with a bounty for extra money or steal things from shops when they close or solo a whole pack of bandits to loot
This is not a game that is going to hold your hand, or even give you any goal to work towards
This is a game where i genuinely thought there was nothing to do
But it was my fault, i thought there was nothing to do because there was everything to do, but i didn't know where to start and i had no personal goal i wanted to achieve
This game will now consume my life so this is also a goodbye letter to my friends and family
The game is also very mod friendly and i would argue many of them are necessary
If you need a new addiction i highly recommend Kenshi
Its janky, it loads every 2 minutes while travelling long distances, nothing makes sense at first and theres quite a few bugs
But if you can look through all it's issues you'll find a masterpiece
I hate the Holy Nation btw
Anyway great game

653 hours i think says quite a bit, this game is a gem. its a great mix of rpg/rts/colony managment and i adore it. highly recommended for those who enjoy those categories of games.. however i will say this game is NOT easy. mostly EVERYTHING will want to kill/eat you and are almost always stronger than you. you have to level up and become stronger the hard way!... or download mods from the AMAZING modding community and get better training equipment.. the thing about kenshi is everything is up to you as the player. play how you want, go where you want, fight and kill who you want.. become a master swordsman, become a wandering trader, create your own guild of martial artists, bounty hunters, or just a flat out army to take over with.. create an outpost and craft weapons and armor to sell, grow illegal substances and become drug runners, become the leading brewery this side of great desert.. this game is truely based upon your own imagination and you cant play wrong.

I've played over 300 hours and still haven't beaten the game. Instead the game keeps beating me, and I always keep going back and trying again.

Love the game, ridiculous at times however once you get into it and make a plan of what you want to do it's quite addictive.

You could start a simple farming colony, mining, become a slave, kingdom, roaming warrior, the possibilities are endless; to enjoy you simply have to just play it, also check the workshop as there's some cool s**t on there too.

Best RPG I've played. This game lets you mold everything about it. Your given nothing. Its rewarding and detailed. You can be a Business man, a Warlord, a Drug King, oh wait, how about being all three!

This game is absolutely incredible. The learning curve is insane though, and with vanilla it can take a long time to get your levels up. Mods can help with this though, and it's still hard enough that it doesn't feel like cheating. (in my opinion)

>Started as a slave
>stole a fish
>ran from fundimentalists I stole the fish from
>got my legs chopped off by the fundimentalists
>crawled for hours through the desert
>got captured by cannibal robots and got my skin peeled off
10/10 worth it

this game is just endless! if you got bored subscribe to some mods! and i believe you guys will hardly get bored on this game!

Start a game, get knocked into 3000 seconds coma by a goat, 10 beeps out of 10

very hard and unforgiving but is very rewarding once you find your spot and my goals have been set on vengeance.

One of the first games that went through Steam Greenlight back in the day, and I'm glad it did. Not much else out there like it.

It's a shame to love a game that is this unique because it is the only one of its kind and nothing else will scratch it's itch. Luckily there are a ton of mods to keep you satisfied.
It's hard to explore with all the loading times but the atmosphere powered lore in this game makes it worth it all the same.
Hope the sequel comes out before I die. Or maybe another giant fan mod.

Overall great game when it comes to building your own little stories within it.

Silly narrative videos about it really sell the variety your runs can have if you're willing to be experimental with both how you choose to approach your run and what mods and modifiers your run will be using to shake things up even more so than with a default vanilla run.

Progression can initially feel like a massive boulder to overcome due to how feeble your characters feel like in the early game, but it can quickly snowball into you rising higher up in the food chain of this weird world you've been put into.

The vanilla experience can feel a little jarring though, mainly due to the soundtrack occasionally being really jarring with seldom variety. I recommend seeing if you could fix it with some mod or to simply turn down the music when you've had enough and turn on your own music of choice to further immerse yourself in a specific kind of vibe, even if some of the tracks in this game are great.

Very solid game fundamentally which helps you forget the jank it has in it likely due to being built around a game engine so ancient most if not all budding game developers have never heard of it.

It's very much a game for a person of acquired taste, but I'd highly recommend it to anyone that has watched Kenshi videos and thought "I wanna put my playable character(s) through hell, too! (so I get more attached to them)"

Just keep in mind that edited videos skim a lot of fat out of what tends to be lots of hours' worth of gameplay into a more digestible long-form video with narration included in it.

-Picked badass robot as my character
-Ran around figuring out the game
-Got jumped by robo racists and had to crawl back to hub
10/10

This game is very unique. Idk what I like more, playing it or watching other people play it. It was basically made by 1 dude over more than a decade apparently, and it shows. I mean that in a good way. Yes, it has poor performance due to the dated engine and it can be buggy, and the graphics look 18 years older than they are (which I like btw), but being made by one dude gave it unlimited creative freedom. It's very creative and the dev did an unbelievable job of bringing the world to life. The desert feels dangerous, the mobs are unique with good variety, there are tons of factions and the world doesn't sit around and wait for you to save it. It moves on with or without you, and you're just some hungry dude in a desert full of cannibals, murderers, and monsters. And sand. Lots and lots of sand. Kenshi focuses on player driven narrative and role playing and it does it better than any AAA studio could ever hope to achieve. The devs passion for this theme bleeds through in every detail. If you love media that centers around post-apocalyptic desert worlds, and you like CRPGs, give Kenshi a try. But first watch a YT video of someone playing it because it's got a pretty steep learning curve that I'm still near the bottom of. Overall I love this game. I think about it sometimes at work, and that to me is the ultimate measure of whether or not a game is worth owning.

You will hate yourself and your choices, both in game and in real life. This game has so much content and no content at the same time. As soon as you set a goal for yourself, it will take you 100 hours to get it and then the next thing you know you've wasted weeks trying to figure out mechanics for a game that wants nothing more than to enslave you. 10/10 if you're sadistic. Not for everyone.

Only says I've played 217 hours. Add ~400 offline hours played and that'd be a correct number.

One of the neatest sandbox games I've played. I'll recommend it to anyone who appreciates:
Hardcore survival (you truly are a wimp when you start out, even a baby goat could KO you),
A lot of skills to improve (and visual changes to your characters when you improve certain skills, something I personally appreciate),
An awesome land to explore (the game map is HUGE, and has tons of secrets, plus the lore in-game is rarely written, but it's deep, and you have to piece it together by talking to NPC's and exploring different areas),
A really neat building and settlement system (it gets even more complex and powerful the more you learn, you can essentially have a self-sufficient settlement through the 'Jobs' system),
Min-maxing (there are a multitude of strategies for improving your characters and streamlining efficiency, for example, overloading your character's inventory while learning Martial Arts improves strength, but makes them move ungodly slow, which is inherently dangerous in this game),
Total freedom (you don't like this major faction because one of their nobles killed or enslaved your favorite character? Okay, train your other characters and come back and wipe out their entire faction, city by city).

It's one of those games that totally refines your concept of a sandbox game. At least, it was for me.

Beginner's tips: learn to run fast early on, improve strength by carrying bodies, scavenge as much as you can from battlefields, and regardless of what others say, learn sneaking. Don't start as a Skeleton, even though they're extremely cool - they're really hard to play if you're not familiar with how they, and the world, work.

Одна из немногих игр, которая меня настолько сильно затягула, что хочется изучать лор игры. Пусть он и довольно скудный, но будем надеяться, что во второй части разработчики уделят больше внимания этому аспекту игры. Помимо этого, было бы замечательно ввести в игру побольше осмысленных диалогов и в принципе больше взаимодействий с НПС. Во всём остальном же игра идеальна настолько, насколько это возможно для такой небольшой студии.

One of the best games I played in this genre.
Very unique and from a small dev team they came a long way.
Start small and end with an army and your own huge settlement/city. . . .well if there is an ending as you can keep playing forever.

- Find people.
- Feed your people.
- Rescue them from enslavement or just buy them at the tavern ( A lot of options to name).
- Make your own small settlement with a few huts and end in your own city with traders.
- Fight for freedom or enslave more settlers (The choice is literally yours).

Some where in the future I still hope they could create a certain co-op version.
Like if you can create factions with friends and do your own thing. Just trade or kill them (capture some of your friends NPC's)

Robots, Monkeys, Ninjas, and Fishmen. What more do you even need in a game?

You want to be a sword fighter?... do it!
You want to combat slavery? ...do it!
You want to profit from slavery? ... do it!
You want to be a drug smuggler?... do it!
You want to feast on the flesh of your enemies? ... do it!


Kenshi is a true sandbox experience, minimal hand holding, maximum playability. The epitome of gameplay over graphics. Rich story and lore which you may or may not be into but it doesn't matter.
It will take some learning to get on your feet, but if you are patient and have the ability to learn from mistakes you will find this game well worth your time.

Kenshi is like doing butt stuff for the first time - all over again.
It start off pretty uncomfortable, maybe even painful, but then it slowly becomes more and more enjoyable and before you know it, you've got a new addiction. I highly recommend if you're into butt stuff in other words.

as soon as i understood the game, it quickly rose to among my favorites of all time. Being the nostalgic and worn down desensitized adult of a human being i am today i never expected a game made in my adult life to ever create an impression on me of such proportion, like the ones of my golden childhood years did, but kenshi did it and it is such a breath of fresh air to find something truly unique with a developer that puts actual heart, soul, and cleverness into their game. No overpolished graphics, no microtransactions, no handholding, and a world that gives you as much as you put into it and gives you true freedom.

Kenshi is a perfect game with no bugs, just like real life

It is not a bad game but I feel it is a bit overrated based on the others reviews. Ultimately I am putting a negative review because I didn't find it fun and by the end of it, it was a bit of a chore.

I don't have a problem with the graphics or even with the crazy way a corpse bounce off the ground when I drop it. But after playing this game my eyes hurt, specially during nighttime, and the UI is super clunky. There seems to be a micro involved

It advertises itself as a unique game but it is essentially a fallout game in the exploration/rpg/setting side and a dwarf fortress on the crafting/colony sim side. Mixing both sounds incredibly appealing but in the end both systems end a bit shallow obviously , as it can't focus on either

The game does have a lot of charm and I totally understand why some people really love it, but it is not my cup of tea. Will try to play again in the future and see if I get into it then

Morality has been bleached and left to drown under desert sands...
If it is not nailed to the wall, steal it.
If it is not a killer, kill it.
If it can be captured, slave it.
All hail sand, the bleacher of bones the skinner of flesh.

I really, really, really need to stop playing this game and sleep.

Highly recommended as an alternative to taxes, talking to loved ones or anything productive.

>got called a slur upon entering a city
> exit city, get called a slur again
> get attacked, people who called me a slur protects me
> watch those people who attacked me get enslaved
> try and steal from them, get knocked out, enslaved
> search internet how to escape slave status
> every source says its actually a good thing
> grind stats, escape
> lose limb during a fight
> internet says its a good thing
> replace limbs
> become OP
>Peak game

Very open-ended sandbox, with loads of exploring to do.

Really got me addicted, haven't felt like i wanna leave work so bad just to play a game in a while and this game did it..
all i could think about..
that pause and un-pause sound effect never left my head in bed..
10/10 🥹❤️

its a fun game, very chalenging, but very glitchy

If you're starting out in this game, I recommend settling in the Sonorous Dark! The faction there is headed by a doctor, so it's got clinics and roving bands of paramedics. They even do house calls!

An absolute masterclass in organic storytelling, and one of the best I've ever seen in a game, if not the best.

I've had this game installed on several computers over the last decade and have barely played it. Seems fun though.

i played only for 3 hours on steam but over 3000+ hours as a pirate, this game was good (or addictive) enough that it persuaded a life long pirate living in a third world country with a devalued currency to make a legal purchase. best endorsement i can think of to be quite honest

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☑ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☑ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

My first experience in this game was walking out of the city gates and immediately looting bandits after a fight, running into the city just for the rest of the bandits to run into a bar and beat my ass while I was selling the loot. I love this game already. (Not sarcastic, I genuinely couldn't help but laugh)

Great game. Its pretty hard at times but super fun no matter what and the world is absolutely huge

This game is simply incredible. It has downsides, like anything, but for me the biggest one is that there isn't more game. That's not to imply it's lacking; it isn't. I just want there to be more so I can spend even more time on a playthrough. Absolutely worth it at full price and complete robbery on sale. Get it.