Kenshi Reviews

Kenshi is a cool blend of RTS, RPG, and city builder / manager set in a very interesting world with a very cool backstory that is very difficult to figure out. There are many ways to progress, many ways to play, and a lot of stuff to try. This game is unforgiving, but it teaches you quickly how to survive through gameplay and minimal tutorial. While most games make the player feel like the main character in a story, Kenshi's appeal lies in the fact that players very much feel like a small, insignificant part of a world that continues on just fine with or without their involvement. All characters have perma-death. You create a character in the beginning, but the game doesn't end if that character dies. You're able to recruit countless others into your party, and as long as you still have one living party member, the game continues. In this way, Kenshi constantly and uniquely reminds the player, "you are not special. You are not chosen. You are not significant."

You will be playing this game for a while, think to yourself; "I'm kind of tired, I should take a break," only to find that it is now 1:00 AM, you started playing at three in the afternoon, and you wonder to yourself: "How the hell?!" You spent all of that time building a house, which then got raided by ninjas who cut your legs off. 11/10 Game Kenshi is a fully sandbox RPG-RTS mix. You are free to do whatever the game mechanics allow on a surprisingly huge map with dynamic factions, trade simulation, fully offline character simulation (things are still happening in real-time off screen), with classic RPG things like stat leveling and gear collecting. You can play it like a city management game, a trade tycoon, a grand strategy, or simply be an adventurer, akin to playing D&D by yourself. Kenshi is also extremely mod-friendly with a built in mod manager so you can change it to suit your personal preferences.

The struggle is real, and that matters.

The game is unique and fun to play, especially with mods. However with or without mods the game is probably the most crash prone game I've ever played. And the causes of these crashes are honestly just unknown. The game will crash over anything and nothing. You'll have times where its crashing every 5 minutes. Then other times you get a solid 8 hours out of it with not a single crash. More often than not no crash dump is generated so you can't even attempt to trouble shoot the problem even if you wanted to. Onto the game itself...while the game is fun there are some things that bother me. Combat is basically an elaborate auto resolve system. You can cheese things a little bit by manually moving characters out of the way of enemy attacks but this becomes too micro and just not fun or worth it. You can also cheese a little bit with range kiting. Don't recommend that either since the AI can't do this to you and as long as you outrun your target you can do this to every enemy in the game and completely bypass melee combat altogether. Watching battles is entertaining and since the combat is basically auto resolve you'll quickly find some of the silliness of it. Sometimes damage just wont spread out on all the body parts having your guys go down very fast. The flip side is also true where damage keeps getting spread on an enemy making them take FOREVER to go down. You also need to completely eclipse your opponents in combat skill to reliably stand a chance of coming out on top. If you are on equal footing with your opponent your likely just going to lose the fight. For a game that prides itself on wanting you to lose fights to get stronger it makes it stupid dangerous to actually do that. You NEED a medic hidden in the bushes to heal the group up cause you are NOT going to get back up in any reasonable fashion. Only high toughness characters reliably stand a chance of getting back up again but since toughness pretty much stops leveling organically at around level 35-40 you are forced to cheese toughness training to get any higher. And you WILL need to get higher toughness since quite a few high end enemies will be rocking 80+ in stats. Armor doesn't work the way you think it would work. Because of how the damage calculation works depending on combination of armor you can legit take less or more damage by just wearing a masterwork piece vs a masterwork and a shoddy piece underneath. There are mods that tweak this however you'll find the game becomes even more unbalanced than it already is. Speaking of unbalanced... Animals are severely broken. You can completely destroy all limbs and it will not affect their fighting capacity in the slightest. So shots to anything other than the vitals are basically wasted damage. They also have no stagger or stun animation. So animals are always ready to attack and depending on the animal the attack happens really fast. Eventually you can get hit by an animals attack and because they can't be stunned you can legit be stun locked to death. There are videos of people doing this with bonedogs to endgame bosses. Stealth and thievery are horribly broken but in a fun way honestly. You just have to limit yourself to not go too much into it. Think this covers the main points. If Kenshi 2 ever comes out I hope they change quite a few core aspects of the game. Cut back on the reliance of cheese or exploits to level characters stats to take on higher end foes. Fix the god awful instability. Have the world feel more alive. Have factions do things without the players input. Have ways better than dummies to train yourself for combat. I'd settle for a dojo or an academy or being able to enlist as a soldier to train yourself in a much safer environment. Make base building a bit more intuitive. Its currently very barebones and honestly not all that fun. You get raided far far too much. Also hope the game isnt going to have 90% of encounters being hostile. Why can't I pay bandits to just go away? Why can't I come across a trade caravan that asks for me to join up for safety in numbers? Why don't people pay me to be a merc for them? Cool stuff like this is what Kenshi 2 needs rather than just constant hostility. Thats all I got really.

It takes some time to get used to the game but damn this game is good, There is nothing like it honestly a masterpiece.

If Arrakis went through the kind of political instability that was explained in Fallout: New Vegas. This game doesn't really care if you play it or not. That's what makes it so good. The best way to start is to ask yourself; if I woke up in this exact situation, what would be my first order of business? Whoever wrote this game is incredible.

One of the very first games to get voted for in the (now defunct) Steam Greenlight program, it's since gone on to become a staple of Indie game success stories. The history of this games' development is actually super inspiring in and of itself, and Chris Hunt (the solo dev behind it) is an absolute legend. I genuinely mean it when I say, there really aren't any games out there quite like Kenshi. It's a true sandbox experience through and through, and a brutal one at that. No quests. No guidance. No hand-holding. No second chances. The game really ain't lying when it says; you are a nobody. Thrown into the deep-end of a harsh and unforgiving world, it's up to you to train your character, build your squad, and try make something of yourself (or die trying). Every single character in game has the same stats, same mortality, and same pool of health. Wanna take out a leader of a faction and see what happens? Go ahead. Wanna do a solo-run with a martial arts expert and take on whole armies yourself? Go ahead. Wanna build a massive faction with dozens of workers, fighters, explorers, and more? Go ahead. Combat is freakin' amazing, and is entirely physics based too. If that enemy swings a cleaver and hits you in the arm, that arm's either broken or coming straight off. Characters will often lose arms, legs, or both. In the early game you'll quite often be rolling with a squad of atleast 1 or 2 amputees, but late-game though, when you finally start dishing out some damage yourself, that's when the real party starts. On top of the complex and highly satisfying combat system, there's also base-building, mining, research, crafting, dynamic world states, and a whole lot more. One you pass that initial learning curve - and it's a big one - the game really does open up with so much possibility. Now if all that stuff ain't cool enough already, it's all set within one of the coolest and most intriguing open worlds you'll see. The map is HUGE, 870 square kilometres to be exact, and is split up into 71 unique zones. Each zone is visually distinct with its own unique flora and fauna, and you'll encounter different enemies, hazards, and locations in each. One has a giant death ray that randomly travels across the map. One has bands of cannibals that try kidnap and eat you. One is infested with murder giraffes. The list goes on and on. The possibilities are near-endless in this game, and the replay value is insanely high. Add workshop mods into the mix and you've got yourself some insane value for your buck. If you're on the fence about buying it, do yourself a favour and add it to your cart. Purchase the game. Install on your SSD (imporant). And get ready to experience a game like no other.

I want to apologize to the developers of this game. I am truly sorry that I waited for this game to go on sale before buying it. I love the attention to detail, the mechanics, the freedom to write my own story, and the endless possibilities you have provided. I am excited to see Kenshi 2, it will be one of the few I am willing to pay full price for.

Imagine Stardew Valley but instead of a cozy community to explore, there are endless Bandit raids pillaging your fields, removing your limbs and selling you into slavery (If you're lucky). 10/10.

Nowhere near finished with Kenshi. While parts of this game may resemble others, the complete experience defies direct comparison. Honestly, I really can’t explain it. You have to feel the terror of a Beak Thing chasing you, only to be “saved” by slavers, then escape them all and get “peeled” by crazy robots to even start understanding what this game is about. Especially with all the Workshop content, the playability seems endless. And all without ever buying a DLC. Lowkey though if I could ask for two things if only in Kenshi 2. Attack formations for rangers, a line or semi-circle, and medics bringing my KO’d to beds. Love this game, gonna love the sequel. Big ups to the devs, chef's kiss.