A little game called Kenshi

So, I've been meaning to make this thread for quite some time now. I've been hooked on this weird indie game called Kenshi for a few years at this point.

It's basically a post-apocalyptic, survival, strategy, adventure, RPG with a healthy dose jank thrown it. I'd beat describe it as DnD and Rimworld had a baby, then left it to be raised by wolves, who then raised it on a steady diet of meth and rusty nails. It's buggy as hell and twice as ugly, but man is it a great game.

If you like the player-driven story aspect of DnD, and the idea of gathering a party of adventurers with their own backgrounds and stories, some invented by you, you might appreciate this game. If you like the colony building in a hostile world, with raiders and permadeath ans all that from Rimworld, you might like this game. If you like being killed and eaten (generally in the opposite order) by giant giraffe-turtle-dinosaur monsters, that is one hell of a specific want in a game, but oh boy do I have some amazing news for you.

Many of the steam reviews are people just reciting their favorite story they've had in the game. Mine is my current playthrough. The (very) abridged version is as follows. I started with two characters, both slaves of the Holy Nation, working in a mine. One lost his leg in a failed escape, the other managed to escape. Somewhere along the line she gathered a handful of other escaped slaves, and after several mishaps slowly managed to flee beyond the reach of the Holy Nation. Over the course of many adventures (which I won't list here; the full story is a literal novel's worth of material), a lot of training, and many new followers, a small city arose there, populated by freed slaves and adventurers. She explored ancient ruins, fought warlords and insane robots, defeated an Elder Beak Thing in single combat, rescued a robot and a hover named Beep. She recruited a masterful assassin with a legacy of trying to kill an emperor, a thief from a run-down trade city, an old soldier, far past his prime, a depressed robot, a warrior princess, and many other characters. She gathered a squad of giant warrior crabs. She returned to the slave mines, freed her original companion along with many other slaves, defeated the Holy Nation's forces, destroyed the slavers, the United Cities, and many other factions, and went on to become the greatest warrior ever to live, give or take a few ancient warlords. I'm just about done, but there's still more to be written for this story, and I'm still excited to see what happens next.

If you do get it, be aware, you will die. A lot. Let it happen; that's part of the game too. You're playing out stories, and most stories eventually end. It's very directionless, and your first few playthrough will just be getting a feeling for the game. Bad stuff happens. Your characters will die. They'll lose a leg. They'll be enslaved. They'll have their food stolen and starve to death in the desert. They'll be eaten alive or burned by acid rain or murdered for the last scrap of food in their pocket. I'd encourage you to not just return to your last save. The bad stuff is what makes the stories so interesting. It's definitely not a game for everyone; it's brutal, unforgiving, harsh, mean, and a few other words that are basically to that effect. It's not "tough but fair" in the way Dark Souls is, it's just brutal in a lot of ways that you can't necessarily do anything about, and often what you can do is deal.with the outcome.

On a much less positive note, also be aware that the game has a few known major bugs, along with a lot of minor ones. I love it dearly, but it's definitely well past the "need to know just how buggy it is" threshold. If you die, close the game and restart it, do not use the "new game" option in the ingame menu. Only from the main menu, and there is no "back to main menu" button (in case you're wondering why, if you do it from the ingame menu then sometimes cities will spawn completely abandoned and player-built structures from your last save will appear in the world). Terrain and pathing breaks a lot, sometimes gates can't be opened, sometimes you get stuck in doorways, characters can walk behind barrels and get stuck and starve to death, people fall through floors and get knocked through walls with alarming regularity. It's a mess, but well worth it in my opinion.

 

souns fun! wann to play