Kenshi - open-ended sandbox RPG set in a desert world

[mondblut]

Roleplay

U r gay.

The moment you start to powergame game effectively loses its hook and it becomes boring as shit and you lose interest in it.

Git gud. I've been powergaming the living shit out of it and haven't lost interest for like a year, until I started wondering wtf I am doing with my life.

 

[Perkel]

The moment you start to powergame game effectively loses its hook and it becomes boring as shit and you lose interest in it.

Git gud. I've been powergaming the living shit out of it and haven't lost interest for like a year, until I started wondering wtf I am doing with my life.

I did powerplay which is actually easy in Kenshi once you "get" few tricks. The moment you can just outpower enemies rather than outsmart them game completely loses its charm.

The issue is that the moment you stop wandering through those wasted then everything kind of breaks. Imho stuff like basebuilding should be even more punished at start and hub area should be either removed or reworked completely to fit rest of the game.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I concur with those who're saying that, if it's your first time playing, you should close the thread right now. The less you know the more you'll enjoy it. Maybe that's true for most games, but it's specially true for Kenshi. You'll understand why later.

On "powergaming"...

Is there anyone who doesn't "powergame"? The problem with Kenshi is that, once you know what to do, it's simply not challenging anymore, so you have to impose restrictions on your playstyle, either mechanical restrictions(like tweaking the economy/combat/troop formations, playing with zoomed in camera and other tricks I've posted about before) or "roleplaying" restrictions(solo/small squad, recruit only the same race, no prosthetics, etc.).

If you just care about roflstomping everyone without concern for challenge, that ironically makes you more of a roleplayer than the roleplayers.

 

[mondblut]

If you just care about roflstomping everyone without concern for challenge, that ironically makes you more of a roleplayer than the roleplayers.

We roleplay the four (or however many the game allows) riders of apocalypse sent to scourge the world.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

The rough part of starting Kenshi is figuring out what to even do in the game.

It's part of the dev's "No quests" philosophy but the towns don't even offer proper jobs, which doesn't make a lot of sense. I feel like you should be able to go work on the farms or mining camps or something. The two most common ways to start are thievery or mining for profit, both of which the dev considers exploits. So what the hell are you even *supposed* to do? Basically the only other option is skulk around town gates waiting for trash mobs to fight guards and then loot the corpses.

Kenshi is a harsh and unforgiving world, there is no reason to treat it fairly.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Stealing is broken because sneaking is broken. You're the only one who can do it, which is unfair. Likewise with "Assassination". I simply don't use those abilities anymore.

Is mining broken? I don't think so; it's something you do in the very early game to get money to buy basic supplies and equipment, or to work on your strength. You still need to watch out for bandits, so you can't just leave it running. The rewards are pitiful compared to adventuring. It's a slave's job after all.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Is mining broken? I don't think so;

I agree, it's pretty dangerous and you'll spend most of your income on food. Yet the dev still said he felt players shouldn't do it. idk, ask him why.

I agree on stealing being OP, mainly because weapons are worth too much. Having a nice weapon in Kenshi barely makes a difference (armor is king) yet they sell for huge. A small colony can churn out 100s of weapons for free and break the economy. I stopped using thievery mainly because I found it tedious and boring.

The last game I played I saved up for housing in a town, set up a smith, and crafted raw materials into weapons and sold them. You need a decent amount of seed money to start and you'll have to schlep to multiple towns for materials to keep your smith fed, but that gives you opportunity to explore, recruit, etc.

 

[Zanzoken]

I am of the opinion that you can't really evaluate a game's design without knowing what the designer's intent was. Luckily he has commented on this publicly.

Spoiler

Spoiler

A few thoughts:

- If he was trying to make an RPG more so than a city builder, then he put way too much emphasis on the basebuilding and raiding systems. Seriously they're like half the fucking game. I know basefags will be triggered, but if you take his comments at face value then it's bizarre that he even included it as a feature.

- The game also isn't really a survival game, simply because it's way too easy to find resources. That Reddit nerd says "in the real world valuable stuff is not free to pick up" which is true, and yet in Kenshi natural resources like copper, iron, and animals are all free for the taking, which makes it quite easy to survive and even become wealthy.

- His implication that allowing you to talk to and accept jobs from NPCs is unrealistic and "theme park" design is to the game's detriment. You should be able to join factions or at least ally with them to work toward common goals, and have the game recognize and support this when thematically appropriate. The fact that the game barely reacts to anything you do (short of killing faction leaders) is a major contributor to it feeling so static.

- If adventuring is supposed to be a key feature then it's a shame the dungeons (i.e. ancient labs, workshops, etc) are mostly copy-pastes of each other, and so is loot.

tl;dr The gameplay would have been a lot better if it had been designed more like a traditional cRPG.

 

[BruceVC]

I concur with those who're saying that, if it's your first time playing, you should close the thread right now. The less you know the more you'll enjoy it. Maybe that's true for most games, but it's specially true for Kenshi. You'll understand why later.

On "powergaming"...

Is there anyone who doesn't "powergame"? The problem with Kenshi is that, once you know what to do, it's simply not challenging anymore, so you have to impose restrictions on your playstyle, either mechanical restrictions(like tweaking the economy/combat/troop formations, playing with zoomed in camera and other tricks I've posted about before) or "roleplaying" restrictions(solo/small squad, recruit only the same race, no prosthetics, etc.).

If you just care about roflstomping everyone without concern for challenge, that ironically makes you more of a roleplayer than the roleplayers.

Interestingly enough I am reading most of the comments in this thread but Im skimming through them and Im not reading Spoilers for obvious reasons

And I still dont know much about the game but I do have high-level advice which is ideal

When I play any game for the first time I typically read a high-level and general "tips around game x" guide but Im not going to do that with Kenshi because I want to experience its open-world design in the most effective way it was designed

I am just going to jump in with no idea what Im suppose to do and see how adventures unfold

 

[Galdred]

I am of the opinion that you can't really evaluate a game's design without knowing what the designer's intent was. Luckily he has commented on this publicly.

Spoiler

Spoiler

A few thoughts:

- If he was trying to make an RPG more so than a city builder, then he put way too much emphasis on the basebuilding and raiding systems. Seriously they're like half the fucking game. I know basefags will be triggered, but if you take his comments at face value then it's bizarre that he even included it as a feature.

I don't agree: The settlement part makes for a good exploration objective, as you are rediscovering forgotten techniques and putting them to good use.
To me, that is what makes Kenshi unique, while strongholds are usually pointless in other RPG.

- The game also isn't really a survival game, simply because it's way too easy to find resources. That Reddit nerd says "in the real world valuable stuff is not free to pick up" which is true, and yet in Kenshi natural resources like copper, iron, and animals are all free for the taking, which makes it quite easy to survive and even become wealthy.

Early on, it is usually not that east without metagaming knowledge, as you will regulary get trounced by wandering bandits while trying to extract iron and copper, unless you find one the safest spots for that.

- His implication that allowing you to talk to and accept jobs from NPCs is unrealistic and "theme park" design is to the game's detriment. You should be able to join factions or at least ally with them to work toward common goals, and have the game recognize and support this when thematically appropriate. The fact that the game barely reacts to anything you do (short of killing faction leaders) is a major contributor to it feeling so static.

- If adventuring is supposed to be a key feature then it's a shame the dungeons (i.e. ancient labs, workshops, etc) are mostly copy-pastes of each other, and so is loot.

Definitely! But that would also have added a lot of development time, on a game that already took forever to get completed. And in most RPG, reactivity is usually only superficial to begin with.

tl;dr The gameplay would have been a lot better if it had been designed more like a traditional cRPG.

Getting home crippled after a difficult raid, while being harassed by blood spiders to finally reach the cover of my own base with my defenders repelling the spiders and not-dinosaurs made the experience unique to me. I'm glad it is not yet another traditional RPG.

Edit: Also, you don't really need to go all in. Setting up "fire bases" with some walls, harpoons, and beds in the middle of a hostile area can make exploration that much easier!

 

[thesecret1]

Early on, it is usually not that east without metagaming knowledge, as you will regulary get trounced by wandering bandits while trying to extract iron and copper, unless you find one the safest spots for that.

Nah, it is easy - you just run away. Even if you've plopped down a base, you can just grab all your characters and leg it. The bandits usually loot fuck all anyway, so there's not much of a detriment to letting them squat in your base for a while before they fuck off. The solution for that would've been to make them trash your base, so that there's an actual reason to defend it, but alas

 

[mondblut]

I don't agree: The settlement part makes for a good exploration objective, as you are rediscovering forgotten techniques and putting them to good use.
To me, that is what makes Kenshi unique, while strongholds are usually pointless in other RPG.

Here here. If dungeon delving was supposed to be the game's most important feature, it would qualify for the worst dungeon crawler ever. Exploration is hardly much better, there's fuck all to find beyond an occasional pretty vista. Take the entire lower left corner of the map beyond sheklands and the bugmaster... why is it even there?

It's disturbingly common how a mastermind behind a great game doesn't have a faintest clue about what made it great.

 

[toro]

Somehow this bit of information was not posted on the codex.

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Kenshi has sold 2 million copies! Plus: Animated Steam Avatars
Kenshi passes 2 millions sales mark, animated Steam avatars + Community Spotlight #16

Hey Kenshi crew, how you doin’? First up - in case you missed it, we recently posted a blog with a little Kenshi 2 news and a brand new Kenshi Free Camera mode. Check it out if you’ve not had the chance. So why are we here again so soon? Well, we’ve a pretty big milestone to celebrate:

Kenshi hits two million sales milestone

We’re overjoyed to announce that we’ve sold 2.3 million copies of Kenshi. Not only that - more of you folks bought yourself a copy of Kenshi in 2023 than in any other year. Wild.

We celebrated with tees for the crew

So here’s a massive thanks to everyone who’s helped us on this journey. You might not be aware, but we’re an entirely independent company and we don’t have the deep pockets of investors or publishers to help us spread the word at all. We’re therefore especially thankful for all the recommendations and reviews from fans, the work from content creators and all the publications kind enough to cover us. We couldn’t have done it without you.

• PC Gamer - One of the most strange and cruel survival sandboxes I've played has sold 2.3 million copies
• GamesIndustry.biz - Lo-Fi Games' Kenshi sells 2.3m units

 

[Zanzoken]

I hope I'm wrong but after reading that blog post I see Kenshi 2 has all the makings of being the next big indie disappointment.

Lots of similarities to Mount & Blade Bannerlord.

• First game made by a handful of people is a flawed gem that leads to huge success and money.
• Instead of building on the existing formula that's proven to work, devs want to expand and make a AAA-level game.
• They add people and create a much larger team -- the blog post says 33 people working full-time now -- despite the founders having no experience managing or even working in a professional studio.
• No financial pressure = "it will be ready when it's ready" which in practice means they will add a lot of pointless features or be constantly reworking existing content, ultimately spending 3 or 4 times the effort it needs to be good.
• Tech challenges = they've already been through one engine change (Ogre to Unreal) and one engine upgrade (UE4 to UE5), the latter of which could have been avoided if not for extremely long dev cycle.

The net result being it has already been 5 1/2 years since Kenshi 2 was announced (March 2019) and yet not only is a release date nowhere in sight they've barely even shown any content.

Of course it worked out for Taleworlds financially and I'm sure it will for Lofi as well when the time comes. However experience has shown that giving gamedevs unlimited money and time doesn't tend to result in better games. And the longer you make people wait the more expectations tend to inflate. Will the game be worth it in the end? Bannerlord certainly wasn't and I'm concerned that Kenshi 2 won't be either.

 

[Zanzoken]

Sorry for the double post but if you want to understand where the game really stands then I think this is illuminating.

At what point in the dev cycle would you have to be in order for the UE5 upgrade to be the right move? I'm no expert but it stands to reason if you were in full production and within say 2 years of release, you would just ride it out with UE4 and tackle the UE5 upgrade for your next project. It wouldn't make sense otherwise, because you'd be taking on months and months of work to migrate the engine when you could just be finishing the game instead.

Point being, I think in all likelihood this is going to be a much longer wait than people realize. We're past the 5-year mark and I wouldn't be surprised if they're not even halfway done yet.

 

[Joggerino]

I hope I'm wrong but after reading that blog post I see Kenshi 2 has all the makings of being the next big indie disappointment.

Lots of similarities to Mount & Blade Bannerlord.

• First game made by a handful of people is a flawed gem that leads to huge success and money.
• Instead of building on the existing formula that's proven to work, devs want to expand and make a AAA-level game.
• They add people and create a much larger team -- the blog post says 33 people working full-time now -- despite the founders having no experience managing or even working in a professional studio.
• No financial pressure = "it will be ready when it's ready" which in practice means they will add a lot of pointless features or be constantly reworking existing content, ultimately spending 3 or 4 times the effort it needs to be good.
• Tech challenges = they've already been through one engine change (Ogre to Unreal) and one engine upgrade (UE4 to UE5), the latter of which could have been avoided if not for extremely long dev cycle.

The net result being it has already been 5 1/2 years since Kenshi 2 was announced (March 2019) and yet not only is a release date nowhere in sight they've barely even shown any content.

Of course it worked out for Taleworlds financially and I'm sure it will for Lofi as well when the time comes. However experience has shown that giving gamedevs unlimited money and time doesn't tend to result in better games. And the longer you make people wait the more expectations tend to inflate. Will the game be worth it in the end? Bannerlord certainly wasn't and I'm concerned that Kenshi 2 won't be either.

But bannerlord turned out good? I only played it after it came out of early access though.

 

[thesecret1]

But bannerlord turned out good? I only played it after it came out of early access though.

It's still waiting for good mods, and vanilla overworld is shit. That said the battles are a major improvement over warband, so I'd say the guy is overreacting

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I'd be surprised if we see a sequel before 2028. There are so many janky, non-sensical things in Kenshi that could be solved with a little work, yet the game has barely changed in years. I guess they're the "work-life balance" kind of devs, rather than obsessively autistic devs; don't let the kind of audience this game attracts skew your perception.

Early on, it is usually not that east without metagaming knowledge, as you will regulary get trounced by wandering bandits while trying to extract iron and copper, unless you find one the safest spots for that.

Nah, it is easy - you just run away. Even if you've plopped down a base, you can just grab all your characters and leg it. The bandits usually loot fuck all anyway, so there's not much of a detriment to letting them squat in your base for a while before they fuck off. The solution for that would've been to make them trash your base, so that there's an actual reason to defend it, but alas

If you think Kenshi is too easy, the single most important change you can do yourself(I think there are mods too) is to nerf your running speed. It's 100% correct that your ability to run away from everything(except Beak Things, which have an exploitable attack animation) trivializes the survival challenge of the game. Imagine Arnold outrunning the wolves in Conan the Barbarian, that's how dumb it is.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Imagine Arnold outrunning the wolves in Conan the Barbarian

He didn't have the Athletics for it. OG Conan though? Dude could run for miles in the cold, chasing a demi-goddess while near death, just to get laid.

 

[Gahbreeil]

Was there an update or is there a mod for using hashish? You can buy it in the swamp, last I played.

 

[thesecret1]

If you think Kenshi is too easy, the single most important change you can do yourself(I think there are mods too) is to nerf your running speed. It's 100% correct that your ability to run away from everything(except Beak Things, which have an exploitable attack animation) trivializes the survival challenge of the game. Imagine Arnold outrunning the wolves in Conan the Barbarian, that's how dumb it is.

Even that wouldn't solve the issue of base attacks, since you know of each ahead of time. Just grab everyone you have and go for a short vacation somewhere. The bandits will be gone by the time you come back and your base will be untouched. AFAIK the only thing they ever loot is food, but you can just take that with you before you leave.

 

[Seethe]

Very specific ways on how to play this game

BruceVC I hope you didn't read any of this (except the part about what mod he likes, which you did ask for). Although the game can be tough as nails please don't guides or instructions on how you are "supposed" to play it.

This post drips with estrogen.

Nothing screams "testosterone" more than Googling "Kenshi walkthrough".

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Very specific ways on how to play this game

BruceVC I hope you didn't read any of this (except the part about what mod he likes, which you did ask for). Although the game can be tough as nails please don't guides or instructions on how you are "supposed" to play it.

This post drips with estrogen.

Nothing screams "testosterone" more than Googling "Kenshi walkthrough".

Eh, less of a walkthrough and more of a fleethrough, at least at the beginning.

 

[mondblut]

If you think Kenshi is too easy, the single most important change you can do yourself(I think there are mods too) is to nerf your running speed. It's 100% correct that your ability to run away from everything(except Beak Things, which have an exploitable attack animation) trivializes the survival challenge of the game. Imagine Arnold outrunning the wolves in Conan the Barbarian, that's how dumb it is.

Pah. Try a torso start, noob.

 

[PlayerEmers]

Forgot to search for a kenshi thread when I first played the game back in may. Really unique game that got me hooked despite the pure jankiness and flaws.

Have played about 300 hours since may (played about 50% of that time on the steam deck).

Point being, I think in all likelihood this is going to be a much longer wait than people realize. We're past the 5-year mark and I wouldn't be surprised if they're not even halfway done yet.

They will probably do an early access release like the first game, so maybe will only need to wait 5 more years instead of 10?