Every day, over 5,000 people play the rather unknown open-world RPG Kenshi on Steam. We explain why the game can be so incredibly intriguing.
It is incredibly difficult to describe exactly which genre Kenshi actually belongs to. At first glance, it is an action role-playing game from the iso-perspective, in which we explore a huge, post-apocalyptic open world whose setting seems like a mixture of Mad Max and the old samurai films by Akira Kurosawa.
But this simple description would be a gross understatement, because Kenshi is possibly the most complex and unique game experience we have experienced in recent years. Because we have completely failed to tell you about this game so far, we are now making up for it with this game presentation.
Table of Contents
What makes Kenshi special?
In Kenshi, we start out as a lonely wanderer in a run-down hamlet – a role-playing game could hardly begin any more clichéd. But what do we do then? That is left entirely to our imagination.
We are thrown into the game world without any tutorials or quests to guide us. There is no story, and certainly no ending. We are completely free to do what we want with our time in the sword-punk game world (that”s how the developer describes the setting).
You want to join the thieves” guild and get rich as a notorious master thief? Capture crooks and runaway slaves as a bounty hunter? Roam the countryside as a bandit yourself and rob innocent people? Or would you rather, as befits a more honourable citizen, tend a farm or work as a blacksmith? All this and much more is easily possible – and if you invest enough time, you can even found your own empire and overthrow the ruling powers.
But at the beginning of the game all this is a long way off: Our character starts out incredibly weak, he can”t fight, sneak or run particularly fast. These abilities must first be trained by simply using them again and again. Nevertheless, we need food regularly to at least ensure our survival. Mining, for example, is the easiest way to get small amounts of money early on – iron and copper are always needed in the rustic world, where there are mostly only forged melee weapons.
If you don”t want to spend hours pounding on ore deposits, you can also play as a corpse looter for the first few hours of the game – because in the world of Kenshi there are dozens of different factions, nations and groups that regularly get into each other”s hair.
This dynamic game world is the highlight of Kenshi: Something is always happening, there are new things to discover everywhere. While hordes of bandits raid towns and slave drivers capture unwary Vandans, we can make ourselves comfortable in a local bar and make friends with the other patrons – some of whom might even be willing to join us.
Who is Kenshi for?
If you want to play Kenshi, you have to know what you”re getting into: The controls are bulky, the graphics are absolutely outdated and the game is hard as hell – the quicksave button is your best friend, as even a half-starved bandit will knock you out without any problems in the beginning.
But those who manage to look past the poor presentation and get into the complex game world and the even more complex mechanics will be rewarded with an RPG-building mix that will thrill you for hundreds of hours with its unfathomable depth.
Those who prefer to write their own story instead of following a pre-set storyline and also have a love for building, survival and role-playing games should definitely take a look.
What do we like and what don”t we like?
Strengths of Kenshi
- A dynamic, huge and seamless game world with tens of different factions and NPCs is a sandbox dream where we can enjoy all the freedoms (and their consequences).
- Complex progression systems with research, production chains, base building and crafting.
- Dozens of skills that your characters can master, all with important uses.
- Mod support: Thousands of new content can be found in the Steam Workshop.
- The game is completely playable in German.
Weaknesses of Kenshi
- The presentation is stale, both graphics and sound are utilitarian at best. On top of that, there are occasional perfomance problems.
- Kenshi, especially while learning the basics, is just brutally hard.
Kenshi has been in development since 2006, with version 1.0 released on (Steam) at the end of 2018. The game is still regularly updated and is currently available at a price of 27 euros.
Editor”s verdict
I find huge sandbox games, in which I start as a poor sausage and can then build my own kingdom, simply fascinating. That”s why I”ve spent hundreds of hours with Mount & Blade: Warband, its sequel Bannerlord as well as Starsector in the last few years – and with Kenshi I recently discovered perhaps my absolute favourite game in this genre.
The freedom this game offers reminded me directly of my time when I was a little boy wandering through Britannia in Ultima Online: Dangers lurk everywhere. There is something to discover everywhere. And I can develop my game character as I feel like it. The indestructible game principle ensures that I always want to achieve more with the next game level.
Sometimes I explore the game world as a stealthy ninja and secretly scurry through cannibal villages and other dangerous realms, other times I build my own village and sell my self-made weapons, armour and food to passing wanderers in the shop. And one day I will recruit an army and subjugate the entire game world.
