Kenshi

I love how this game emphasize that you can overcome things by hardworking, improving yourself and expresses that without telling you anything just by its gameplay. You don't need to be a chosen one or some godlike being's incarnate to have a enjoyable story, just try to exist in this bizarre world of Kenshi.

Started game.
Very quickly lost 2 limbs.
Came back a day later and cut the limbs off the guy who turned me into a cyborg.
Tried to turn in bounty.
Got attacked because I was a cyborg.
Died.
Restarted.
Only took one minute to lose a limb this time.
Repeated this loop for over 200 hours so far.

This game hates you.
The feeling is mutual.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

I rallied an army of bug men and committed several war crimes on a nation of racists.
10/10 would Beep again.

I'm really trying to get into this game, but I just can't get into the barebones vanilla version. Looking at mods on YT, this game has great potential. However, the fact that I am required to bounce from between the Workshop and Nexus just to download the mods necessary to get the game in a state where it interests me, only for the mods to never be installed in the correct order or are outdated. I'm already bored with this game. I've gotten more entertainment from watching other people playing the game than I have actually playing it.

I don't understand why the devs won't just implement the mods that make the game better into the base game. If they are just going to leave it the way it is and not try to make it any better, what's the point? If they are just going to leave it in this state and work on a sequel, why should I be interested in a sequel, that could be just as boring?

It's a great experience for the fans of getting tougher with each defeat.
It's a story about a simple, regular person, or a group of regular people, that just try to survive in this barely functional world.
It's, sort of, a sandbox for you to explore, with no clear goals besides "live to see another day".
It's a great game.

Kenshi is a game that's difficult for me to review as a simple Yes or No. Kenshi is... a janky, buggy mess, sure. But it's also a hardcore exploration adventure game that goes out of its way to explain nothing--for better and for worse. You can't stop Bob and Tom on the streets of the Hub to ask about the latest rumors or a little advice but you'll overhear snippets in bars. More important characters, if they're willing to talk with you at all, might give you *their version* of an event. The world of Kenshi exists and it doesn't feel the need to explain itself and frankly, that's *charming*.

It's a hardcore game with a steep learning curve and difficult controls. But when you get stronger? You *feel it*. It's a game where you can go from getting your ass kicked and getting enslaved to conquering the world.

My largest problem with Kenshi is the grind. For example: if you want to train strength, you get a backpack full of iron, an inventory full of iron, and carry a dead body stuffed with iron... and walk. Which, while a cool mechanic, ultimately translates to a very boring experience if that's how you choose to play the game.

Ultimately, I enjoy Kenshi. Hell, I made some (bad) mods for Kenshi. It's about the world exploration, for me--and that's definitely something Kenshi gets right.

If you are an experienced gamer you will love the different stories you can produce from your experiences in this game. It's unreal how fun and addictive it can be to just try to work hard and make your character(s) better at many specific things. I find myself constantly trying really hard to get my strength and movement speed up but that's just the start. Then I need to make money and get gear and train with the different weapons so I can have a well rounded party. It's almost like playing dungeons and dragons as a DM for the players only while the actual AI dungeon master keeps throwing you multiple challenges that never get old.

I barely got to scratch the surface of this game. It's very in-depth.

Highly recommended if you are into RTS Survival type games, especially for the price.

A janky masterpiece with some of the best emergent narratives I've ever seen in a game.

This is by far the most frustrating, buggy, clunky, janky, difficult, glitchy game on top of my list of best games of all time.

>put more than 100hrs into a campaign
>train my main and the squad really hard
>go out into the world
>hunt every criminal
>go into war with major factions
>kill their leaders
>kill all of the important people for the lore
>prepare for the long journey to the ash lands
>have a REALLY strong squad
>using literally the best weapons and armors in the entire game
>finally reach the end boss
>the big man
>the legend
>should kill him easily right?
>get my ass beaten
>recommend

WE NEED KENSHI 2!!!

Hands down one of the best games I have ever played.
Kenshi is a unique experience, there really isn't anything else like it.

You start out as a nobody and follow your own path, no quests no holding your hand. You are free to do and go where you want, it is the true definition of an open world. The world is rich in environmental storytelling and if you look for it you will find an incredible history buried and hidden all around you.

You (the player) learn the game and your character(s) will learn skills by getting beat down and going through hardship. Both you and your characters will get better over time and this unforgiving world will open up to you and show you it's beauty and horror. Go and find your way, your story, your experience. Don't give up but persist and reap the reward. Build your own place, your own haven in this unforgiving beautiful world that is Kenshi.

I just realized I never reviewed this game and I'm a bit surprised at myself, since it has been my most played game for over ten years. That's probably enough for me to say about it, really, but there's more.
It's not the prettiest game ever, but it makes up for that with depth. You start out as a nobody, and you can move forward however you want to, but as you grow and gain power, the game responds to you. Your impact on the game world is visible to you in how the gameplay unfolds.
There are a number of things that make Kenshi unique, but I think the most unique thing about it is the health system. It's very complex and closer to reality than a basic HP system, The most common cause of death in this game is blood loss, which can be caused by any of a number of injuries. Also, characters are very much affected by their injuries. For example, amputation is possible. You can even start with a character missing their left arm. I always start this way because I am one handed myself and I relate to that character. My one-armed character struggles to do things in ways that make sense to me (perhaps not entirely accurate, but it's close enough for a game), and I love seeing the improvements in function when I get prosthetics. I wish I could have the same prosthetics in real life, honestly.
Anyway, if you like isometric RPGs, RTSs, city (more of a village) builders, survival games, or any mix of these, this game has something for you to love.

I would normally wait until I finished my first playthrough to leave a review, but they deserve the positive feedback.

I am 220 hours into Kenshi and I am still on my FIRST playthrough. I went into the game totally blind without looking anything up or watching any playthroughs (highly recommend). I also recommend playing "hardcore", living with the results of your actions and not reloading when things don't go your way.

I have been playing this game at least 2 days a week for the past 6 months. I don't think I have ever gotten this amount of value out of any other game. I expect to probably hit 300 hours in my first playthrough alone, and it is replayable for so many challenges and roleplaying scenarios.

Make no mistake, the game is brutal. On the surface, even unfair. You will get beaten up, have your lunch stolen, lose limbs, crawl your way through the desert, maybe be imprisoned or enslaved or eaten alive. There are no indicators that you are entering an area with terrifying, high level enemies. There are very few places resembling anything safe. Be prepared to accept this going into the game.

But if you like the concept of failing forward, if you know how to seize the second chances the game cleverly gives you, if you love a story of rebuilding after tragedy to an even greater triumph, literally nothing else compares to this game. I have looked for games to give me a similar feeling and have found nothing.

What a good freakin' game
A total 10/10 and one of my all time favorites
Absolutely 100% worth the price tag (and it goes on sale often)

One of the very few games that let's you start as a slave, allows you to escape and train up a massive army of Anti-slavers and go to war against the Race-Purist faction that had you enslaved. Wipe them off the map and have their rivals take over their towns and outposts, the go to war against the Anti-slaver faction and wipe THEM out because you want their leader's unique weapons and armor.

Alternatively, you can start as a slave, escape, and JOIN the ultra-racists on their Holy Jihad against the Robot menace, if that's more your thing. Heck, just start your own faction and punch the snot out of people until everyone likes you, or is dead.

There are so many ways you can interact with this world that I could spend hours talking about it and not even scratch the surface, and that's not even counting the massive log of Mods that can completely change the game (or just add a recruitable clown NPC that honks when he gets hit)

Also you can train your martial arts stat to such a high level that you can punch people so hard that you decapitate them and send their head flying off into space
If that doesn't sell you on this game then I don't know what else to say

One small gripe however, the game runs in a custom engine that is less than optimal or stable (so much so that the devs are just using Unreal for the sequel) so expect weird load times, texture pop-ins and just... general bugs and physics (there are a few mods that address the engine issues, but even with them you'll have a few problems)
Far from a deal breaker, but worth noting

It is the best game i have ever played.
I think about the atrocities i committed on Kenshi everyday.
10/10 would feed beep to cannibals again

single most replayable non-multiplayer game ever made period

En este juego hay: Racismo, secuestros, esclavitud, robos, asesinatos, terrorismo, pobreza, clasismo, canibalismo, gente que te ataca con machetes oxidados,... Igual a mi barrio pero con malos graficos. 10/10

Didn't like the vanilla starts so I got the "Nugget Start" cause I wanted a more immersive experience as if I was actually living in Kenshi. Got caught by fogmen and eaten alive 10/10 very realistic

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.

My character got his leg hacked off and enslaved within the first 30 min while my dog and an escaped slave I recruited 5 min earlier bore witness to the atrocities from a distance.
This led to a 5 hour journey of planning and executing a heist to free my dude from slavery.
One thing led to another and I spent 200+ hrs on my first run.
Got some jank and needs mods, but VERY good game.

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.