Kenshi

I've stared at Kenshi's opening screen more times than I care to count, usually right after a previous run ended with my squad bleeding out in a ditch somewhere near the Swampers' territory. That feedback loop, humiliation followed by obsessive re-planning followed by marginally better execution, is exactly what the game runs on. Developed almost entirely by a single person over roughly twelve years, Kenshi is a post-apocalyptic squad RPG that borrows the settlement management layer of RimWorld, the tactical positioning of an RTS, and the faction politics of a Paradox title, then jams all of it into a persistent open world spanning over 870 square kilometres. There is no main quest, no chosen-one framing, no level scaling. The world was here before you and will keep moving without you. The systems that sit under the surface are what make Kenshi worth the investment. Character progression runs entirely on a skill-by-doing model across more than 80 disciplines: no experience bars, no class picks, just repetition. Want a better swordsman? Fight stronger opponents, because the game implements a bonus to skill gain when you lose. Want a reliable crafter? Park someone at a smithing bench and walk away. You can field up to 30 characters simultaneously, assigning automation jobs to your base workers (farming, mining, construction) while a separate combat squad explores ruins or raids caravans. Combat itself is hands-off in execution, driven by stats and gear, but the tactical layer around it, formations, stance switching, knowing when to retreat and let a wounded arm heal before the blood loss knocks your fighter unconscious and draws predators, is where the real decision-making lives. The medical system alone, with limb-specific injuries, crawling incapacitation, and eventual robotic prosthetic replacements, adds a level of consequence that most survival games gesture at but never commit to. The faction landscape is the strategic heart of the thing. The Holy Nation will execute your skeleton squad members on sight. The United Cities will tax your trade routes and plant contraband on you to extract fines. The Shek will respect your warriors and nothing else. Settlement placement matters enormously: soil type affects crop yields, acid rain zones require infrastructure investment, and killing a faction leader triggers a world-states ripple that can redraw territorial borders. These are not background flavour. They are the planning problem you are solving across a two-hundred-hour playthrough. Now the honest part. Kenshi's engine is old and it shows. Loading times from a hard drive are punishing, and even on an SSD the game pauses periodically to pull in new zones. The UI has what reviewers charitably call an arcane MMO feel: inventory management across ten or more characters becomes genuinely cumbersome, and wall-building for settlements is an act of patience that borders on punishment. Save file corruption has been a persistent community complaint, particularly in deep late-game states where the world simulation carries a heavy load. The tutorial layer is thin enough that a first-time player will spend several hours reading forum posts rather than playing, and the early game specifically asks you to absorb being robbed, enslaved, or eaten as a normal part of the learning curve rather than as an edge case. The mod workshop exists but remains relatively modest in scope compared to something like Rimworld, mostly balancing tweaks, race additions, and quality-of-life fixes rather than total-conversion depth. Here is the case for newcomers, stated plainly: pick a starting scenario rated for beginners, set a concrete first goal (mining copper to fund a small outpost), and do not fight anything for the first three hours. Kenshi is not hard to understand once you stop expecting it to explain itself. The systems are logical. The faction relationships are readable if you treat them like a diplomacy screen. The base-building, once it clicks, becomes the kind of satisfying resource chain that strategy fans have been chasing since Dwarf Fortress. If you can stay curious through the first few brutal hours, the payoff is a sandbox that generates stories no scripted game can replicate. If you need a tutorial that holds your hand past hour one, wait for Kenshi 2.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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