Ahh Kenshi, to the untrained eye, you would believe that it was the most unforgiving game ever made. But, when you get into it you realize that it really is the most unforgiving game ever made. Joke, it is forgiving. I don't know though if that forgiveness is real, or made up in your own mind once you get used to the game and experience the really bad times.
Kenshi as a whole gives you enough to let you think you understand how to play and then in an instance will punch you in the stomach and steal your lunch. It's the game equivalent of a schoolyard bully, who sometimes acts friendly.
It was officially released on the 6th of December 2018 and spent 12 years being developed by Lo-Fi Games. Reading through the wiki page, they say that it started development in 2006-2008 by a one-man team, but, then in 2013, he was able to hire a team of developers to work on it with him. It's an interesting game and for something with so much to offer it's hard to believe it had such a small team behind it.
Wiki
The First Time I Played
The game had never been on my radar until I saw it while scrolling through steam one day about 2 years ago, after reading about it I knew that this was exactly what I wanted from a game. So, I bought it and it was the most frustrating game I've ever had to wrap my head around.
I made my character, entered the game, spawned into the town known as the hub, and was pretty lost, I had about 1000 Cats, which is the currency of the game. Soon I realized though that, 1000 Cats wasn't a lot of money. I bought some food and a medkit and essentially all my money was gone. But, there was an ore deposit just outside of town. So, I started mining it and bringing back the iron to sell to the shop in town and with that, I was building my strength, agility, and my labor skill. As well as building up my funds.
I had enough to buy a derelict building in town and was able to buy the materials to build it up. I was also able to buy a bed and a storage container for my house. Then they came, a huge group of Starving Bandits took me unawares and beat the crap out of me, and stole my food. Luckily I was able to survive and crawl back to town, I had barely any funds now and was afraid to go back out. But, I did. Everything was fine.
But, then I came back to town to see there was a fight going on in the bar between a bunch of Dust Bandits and the town guards. I decided to help the guards, thinking I could build my fighting skill and get some armor off the bodies. But no, I got knocked out, this time though I was severely wounded and stayed unconscious, I thought since I was from the town I would get treated, sadly though I didn't and I bled out on the sands outside the bar. I quite the game, I was annoyed, but, I couldn't get Kenshi out of my head so loaded back up about an hour later. Determined now to learn how to play. I'm glad I did.
What's The Goal?
You decide, it's an open world, survival, isometric, RPG, set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. The game tells you nothing about why the world is like this, there's no intro video to let you know the backstory, you discover the world through tidbits of dialogue you pick up from characters along the way.
Kenshi throws you into a world where nobody cares if you live or die. It is the most beautiful ugly world I've ever been a part of. You can choose from multiple starts. The lone survivor was my first playthrough, where you spawn into a town alone. Then there is Man and a dog, kind of like a Mad Max start. Freedom Seekers, you start with 5 characters who have enough supplies to set up a small settlement. Then there is a Slave start, where you and one other character start the game in a Holy Nation work camp and have to try and escape, but, with this start, you can do a Spartacus and overthrow the guards and leave the town with a bunch of people in tow and enough supplies to set up a life for yourselves.
The game is good because it allows you to roleplay whatever experience you want, you can build a character and start your story in any way you want. Each one gives you a unique entrance and helps make the game fresh with each visit.
I usually create a settlement to work from and earn money as the Freedom Seekers, as I find that aspect of the game really fun. You build up slowly, first with basic huts and make-shift walls, but I've seen the end results. After sending your people out into the wastes to explore and find technology that they can bring back home. With that you research the more complex designs and turn that settlement into a large town, attracting traders from all across the map. Fighting large battles against Bandits, Raiders, Shek Warriors, and Slavers. Beating back the tide has never been so fun, especially when you know that not only the lives of your people are at stake, but potentially your whole playthrough.
That's the thing with Kenshi, you feel like everything is at stake all the time and for me, that is a large part of the appeal, I do cheat sometimes by loading up a previous save. But, I try to reframe from doing that as much as possible.
You're Not The Hero
I've heard people using this term to describe it, because, it's true. In Kenshi when you start regardless of how you start you're weak, all of your stats are 1 and that means that a light breeze could knock you over. This is half of the charm because when you get to a stage where you can hold your own in a fight or sneak past a large group of enemies you feel like you've earned it.
The Factions
The game has a list of factions the length of my arm, each one either likes or dislikes the others through some great world-building. You can't be friends with them all. The two main ones would be.
The Holy Nation, who are crazy religious people who are a force to be reckoned with. If you build a settlement near them or in their territory they'll come by every few days to pray. So, you better make sure you have a bible in your inventory. Also if you get to the front gate as anything other than a human male, they'll attack on sight.
The Free-cities, you'd think they're the good guys but, they aren't really, they hate The Holy Nation and don't care who comes out when they come to your settlement but, they charge a lot of tax with each visit and if you don't pay one day, they'll come back in force to seize your settlement and kill you and your people.
There are a handful of playable races, humans, self-explanatory, they're accepted by the two biggest factions. The Hivers, are weak bug-like people who have territory and villages around the map and are a good place to buy cheap prosthetic limbs for when yours inevitably get chopped off. The Shek are a warrior race, most don't like anyone other than Shek as they see everyone else as inferior. Then there are Skeletons, which are robots from the before times. Nobody really thinks kindly of Skeletons, as in the Lore I think it is believed that they caused whatever happened to make the world as it is. I like the Skeletons though and they're handy to have in your party since they don't need to eat, which is a big help during the early game.
There are a lot of minor factions and races, most are hostile and leave you threading lightly when roaming across the map. Other than people, the wildlife of Kenshi is terrifying which leave whole segments of the map off-limits until you're strong enough to fight or fast enough to run.
I remember the first time I saw a beak-thing, dinosaur-looking creatures who are fast, big, devastatingly vicious, and will eat you when they knock you out. Some spiders are weak but, overwhelm you in large numbers, then there are Bone-dogs, which will tear your limbs off easily. There are many more creatures that patrol the wasteland, few are passive.
Conclusion
I couldn't say enough good things about this game, well worth playing if you don't mind dated-ish graphics. There is a second game coming out, but, there aren't many details about a release date. It's an interesting game that seemingly came out of nowhere as far as I was concerned and I'm happy that I happened by it. It's hard to really discuss the game in words so what I might do is get my computer sorted soon and stream it up on VIMM just to show anyone who may not have played the game what it's all about.