Kenshi should be for me. But it wasn't. And exactly why that is, I'm not entirely sure. I love these sort of sandbox, realistic grand open simulator type games where you just go and do shit. But Kenshi just wouldn't click for me.

It feels abnormally opaque, even by the standards of these sorts of games. It really feels impenetrable. Many of my spawns just had nothing to do? Sparsely populated towns with people who wouldn't talk to me and shops I was too poor to buy anything from. I'd venture out into the wilderness to go find something else to do and eventually starve. That's probably 70% of my Kenshi games.

The others, I do manage to get onto my feet a bit. Maybe I'm enslaved early on or I find someone willing to give me a job I can try and complete. These normally end pretty abruptly thereafter too when I fail or starve again or what have you. I'm quite accustomed to games with steep learning curves or lots of fail conditions like Zomboid or Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress or DayZ or Smallaland or Mount & Blade. So it's not like this style of game or genre is unusual or uncommon to me. Kenshi is just different somehow.

Whatever it is, I just wound up really unable to play much of Kenshi. Not even just by some measure of success, I mean much at all. Most of my runs consisted of walking till I died.

Kenshi still gets three stars from me anyway, for a few reasons. I can see the promise and I can tell that in runs that do go well the game is quite miraculous. In my few runs that did manage to progress a little, the game is quite fun. There's quite a bit of effort in this little title and it's gotta be fairly rewarding to play if you can get that momentum going. I just think it's clunkier and more opaque than its similar cousins in Dwarf Fortress or Zomboid or Mount & Blade. You'd be better off with those, imo.

... Wieso hat das Spiel so viele gute Bewertungen?
Das was in den Bewertungen steht ist so wahrheitsverzerrt, dass ich mich nicht wunder muss, warum Open World Spiele tot und leer sind, denn offenbar wollen Leute genau das.

Was ich immer wieder lese:
Die Story schreibt sich von selbst, du kannst deinen eigenen Weg gehen.
Korrekt.. aber .. ist das bei Elder Scrolls nicht auch so, wenn ich einfach keine Quests mache?
Da kann ich ebenfalls farmen, Monster jagen und die Weltablatschen. Warum macht man es bei Elder Scrolls nicht so? .. weil es langweilig ist.
Es gibt 2 Gesprächsoptionen:
Handeln oder tritt mir bei.
Das wars. Mehr gibts von NPCs nicht zu holen.
Dann..ist doch sicher die RIESIGE!!! open World voll mit Dingen, die man tun kann, oder?
.. nein.
Die Welt ist komplett leer. Selten laufen Monster herum und ab und zu findet man Erz zum abbauen.
Und das wars.
Ich habe euch soeben ALLES erzählt, was man bei Kenshi erlebt.
Langt euch sowas für ein gutes Spiel?
Ich kanns einfach nicht glauben..

Kenshi is a fantastic game where you genuinely make your own story and can do anything in a huge open world with a post apocalyptic samurai aesthetic.

In the same vein as Mount & Blade, UnReal World, and other similar sandbox games; Kenshi has no main story, no pre-determined path to follow. This game is truly a story generator, you will become attached to characters, despise certain factions, genuinely feel affected when someone dies or loses a limb or becomes enslaved. You will make allies, enemies, friends, bases, do anything you want to. You wanna play a lone wandering samurai who bounty hunts? Do it. You wanna be a trader who runs a caravan and makes money selling things at higher value? Do it. You wanna renovate houses in cities and run businesses or training facilities out of them? Do it. Mining operation, hunting guild, farming plantation? Do it. You can ignore so many systems in this game or use all of them. There is an entire city-sim in this game you can choose to not do and not truly miss anything because you are still getting an amazing generated story the way you want it. Group-based rpg. Bounty hunting sim. Solo RPG. City builder. Guild organizer. Thief simulator. Business simulator. All of these things you can do or not. Your choice.

The gameplay is satisfying, very similar to Morrowind in the way of early on you will be missing and getting hurt a lot, but by the end you can feel the grind pay off, your characters becoming skilled and useful. If you enjoy the power gap in games you will enjoy this one, it is not a game about being powerful at the start as you won't be. You need to train. You need to lose fights. You need to get better gear. And it is all so satisfying.

The world is gorgeous and unique, the cities and wilderness and just overall design is so alien and fun and horrifying and beautiful. The music too is just outstanding, the Main Theme in particular makes me feel so emotional, the same way some of the most memorable tracks in gaming like Ezio's Family for AC2 make me feel. Its so good, the mournful yet adventurous and bright sound of the world is hypnotizing and invites you in.

Also, Beep is my truest love.

Damn, I really tried to enjoy this but I found it just too janky, tedious and unfriendly for my tastes.

Definitely like the idea, but I don't love the execution, besides I think the game could benefit from some in-game direction by NPCs and such, without forcing the players to follow them of course, but as it stands now the game consists of a lot of just wandering around aimlessly hoping to stumble into something interesting and that doesn't immediately beat your ass and leave your characters bleeding to death.

The player storytelling potential is 100% there, if you're creative about rp there is something to enjoy here if you can stomach the game's design, as it stands now, I couldn't, I'll limit myself to enjoying other players' stories.

How to describe Kenshi...

It's a RTS RPG Settlement-Builder set in a post-post-apocalyptic science-fantasy world.

It's got a lot of nice details, such as character animations changing based on their skill level, a beautifully desolate world with several different biomes, and a map just chock-full of things that want to kill and eat you, or enslave you, or peel your skin right off.

There's a vast research tree that I still haven't completed after ~250ish hours of play, ruins to explore, different cultures with their own norms.

It's not perfect, but an experienced player can probably find a way around any bugs that come up over the course of a playthrough.

The graphics aren't extremely special, but the wide open nature of the world and all the creatures within can account for that.

The devs have kept the game updated over the years, and seem to really enjoy their community.

Game's worth a try, especially if you like science-fantasy. I will probably keep it in my rotation until Kenshi 2 comes out someday.

Kenshi is a janky, clunky and ugly RPG that, for all of its flaws, I still think is one of the best open-ended RPGs I've played. It doesn’t have a storyline to follow, you just get dropped in and have to figure out the rest by yourself. This can make for a difficult early game in the beginning, until you understand how the different mechanic’s work. Due to this, I can’t recommend it to anyone looking for a peaceful and stress-free gameplay experience, nor can I recommend it for an expansive storyline. Kenshi is, for me at least, the definitive make your own story type game. The possibilities are many, and this goes for replayability as well. Many will bounce off Kenshi for the problems mentioned above, but those who aren’t bothered by it will find a truly amazing game.

Story
The world of Kenshi does the heavy lifting, as there is no main narrative to follow. It’s set in the post-apocalypse; however, the apocalypse was very apocalyptic, and it happened very far in the past. Technologically, it’s a weird mix of medieval era and modern day. Like, the most effective ranged weapon is a crossbow, but there are also fully functional autonomous robots. There are also remnants of the old world, like long abandoned ruins or a space lase that randomly fire down to Earth.
That’s one of the four races. The others are: humans obviously, Sheks like humans but more stupid and brutish, and the Hive who are bugmen that make for great manual labour. In addition, there are also many factions, all of which have their own relationships with one another and their own rules. Like the Holy Nation will kill you on site if you have any mechanical part.
As I said it’s a make your own story, the game helps with this by being so cruel, you can’t help but bond with your characters and the suffering they are being put through.

Mechanics and gameplay
It's an RPG, and it has all the elements you would expect. There is combat, base building, skills, and so on. I don’t want to spend the next 10 paragraphs describing all the mechanics, so instead I will give a short summary of one of my playthroughs.
My journey began with my two characters already enslaved by the Holy Nation and working in the Mines. Their names were Eon and Shem. My immediate goal was to obviously escape, and for that Shem was the promising one. He was faster and stealthier. So, one fateful night, I plotted my escape. While the guards were sleeping, Shem would unlock his cage and knock one of them out, take their armour and disguise himself. Everything was going well, until a guard walked in while Shem was stripping the downed guard. Shem was promptly beaten up and put on the cross, he lost an arm. Eon was in the same building while this was taking place, and he managed to escape.
The next few days were spent in hiding, avoiding anything and everything. Eventually, Eon travelled beyond the borders of the Holy Nation. There he made new companions, started a base, smuggled drugs and made a lot of money in the process. During that time, he was also training, he didn’t forget Shem’s sacrifice, and he wouldn’t leave him a slave.
He gathered his strongest warriors and led them through the Holy Nation undetected until they reached the Mines. A great battle took place, Eon’s warriors were strong and their weapons powerful, but the Holy Nation had numbers. Eon underestimated his foe, but he could buy time, just enough for Shem to limp to safety. After the dust settled most of the warriors were dead or met an even worse fate, Eon was back in his chains, and Shem brought himself back to Eon’s base. He would return the favour.
The cycle will continue.

Graphics/Artstyle
This won’t win any awards for good graphics. If one were to zoom in far enough, the difference between Kenshi and an asset rip on Steam wouldn’t be that big. There are mods to improve it, but I find it oddly fitting.
It's an ugly world, can’t have it looking pretty.

Atmosphere/Immersion
I find Kenshi very immersive. Throughout my playthrough I got very attached to my characters, more so than other games, even though they had no actual personality. I believe this is due to the cruel and unforgiving nature of Kenshi, that gives a sense of realism and validity to the trials and tribulations that the players characters experience.
In fact, this can be applied to the whole game. The world is interesting because it doesn’t care about you, the player is just another small part of it. Thus, it feels more real, almost like it could actually exist.

Soundtrack
It’s a nice tribal-like ost that leans into the desert part of the game. My biggest problem with it is that it plays very rarely. My favourite part is “Scorching Wind”.

Final Thoughts
40 km/h seems like a reasonable pace for someone to be travelling for multiple days, without rest, sustaining themselves entirely on 3 loaves of bread. Right?

In the first 20 minutes of playing this game, I tried making my character (Plank, my beloved) mining some rock for resources only to immediately get killed by bonedogs with no chance of fighting back.

After restarting and playing for another half hour, I saw some bandits get wacked and enslaved by the Holy Nation and figured if I could free one while they didn't see I could get a new team member. That didn't happen and Plank was immediately crippled and enslaved too.

I then spent actual hours in the Holy Nation prison Rebirth training up Plank's lockpick, sneak and assassin skills by freeing and knocking out defenseless fellow slaves. Two slaves tried to escape, only to get caught and get the shit kicked out of them, eventually after enough times getting their legs sliced off. I created an escape plan myself by knocking out the guards at one of the entrances and putting them in slave cages which shouldn't have worked but it hilariously did because Kenshi is janky as fuck. I had a team of 3 at this point, and carried out those two legless slaves who refused to join me and just crawled back in the dust to Rebirth.

I then spent actual hours just trying to have my guys survive, trying to find items I could sell just so they didn't starve. The default hunger speed is crazy so I lowered that I won't lie, and I found a nearby town to live in and buy a shitty little hut in. Eventually after scrounging up enough I got a bigger house for all of my guys, and got some mods so I could do some farming inside the town to create hemp, so I could make fabric, so I could make bandanas, so I could then eventually level up one of my guy's clothing skill to make enough high quality bandanas so I could sell them and become crazy rich.

I then spent actual hours just levelling up combat skills and recruiting new people. I got a mod that increased skill level up speed because the default is agonising I won't lie. To train combat skills your best bet is just to throw your guys at bandit groups and get the shit kicked out of you, and do it over and over until you need someone stronger. When training my group against some aggresive escaped slaves, one of my characters - called Plop - severed an arm off a slave, and then brutally chased her down as she fleed to cut off the other arm just for fun or something. I felt so bad man, I patched her up and let her heal back up in my base. When she was healed she speedily ran the fuck out for obvious reasons, only to run into another one of my team outside the town who I had returning and then basically recruited herself onto my team upon seeing him. I think events like this happen with injured NPCs, but it probably isn't intended for contexts like this lmao.

I think you get the point. Kenshi can be jank, grindy, tedious, and hard to even approach, but its an incredible RPG sandbox that can give you insane and unique tales with all the freedom it has. Its really satisfying struggling so hard at the beginning, taking forever to do anything, only to finally be able to fight back in the cruel world of Kenshi. My boy Plank ended up toppling the Holy Nation that once enslaved him, with a lot of difficult and bizarre stuff along the way. I highly recommend you give it a go and just see what stories you end up with.

Hey Hey people, not Sseth here...

Bem-vindo a Kenshi, o jogo que faz você se perguntar se seus olhos foram transportados de volta para a era do PlayStation 1. Os gráficos são tão "charmosos" que você juraria que o desenvolvedor era fanático por polígonos pixelados. Mas calma, porque em Kenshi, a beleza está nos olhos de quem sabe apreciar um visual retro chique.

Sobre a jogabilidade? Ah, ela é mais desengonçada que uma girafa patinando. Controlar seus personagens é tão intuitivo quanto tentar ensinar física quântica para uma galinha. Mas não se preocupe, porque em Kenshi, todos são meio que desengonçados, e isso faz parte do charme. É tipo aquele baile estranho onde ninguém sabe dançar direito, mas todos estão se divertindo.

O mundo você pergunta? Bem, os canibais são tipo vizinhos que sempre querem te convidar para um churrasco... onde você é o prato principal. Os fanáticos religiosos são persistentes como vendedores de seguros. E os bandidos estão mais interessados em roubar sua comida do que qualquer outra coisa. É uma espécie de dieta criminal.

A experiência em Kenshi é como uma obra de arte abstrata: pode não fazer sentido à primeira vista, mas ao se aprofundar nesse universo complexo, uma maravilhosa tapeçaria de desafios, histórias e conquistas se desdobra diante do jogado, uma jornada inesquecível, onde a brutalidade, os gráficos feios e a jogabilidade estranha se entrelaçam para criar algo verdadeiramente único e extraordinário.

Beep....