KENSHI
Create your own story in a brutal, uncaring world
THERE ARE NO OBJECTIVES, NO STORY TO FOLLOW. IT’S COMPLETELY OPEN-ENDED
Nobody cares about you. You aren’t special. You don’t matter. You are not the center of the universe. I’m not used to games telling me this, but this is Kenshi’s whole thing. It’s an RPG set in a brutal world that doesn’t give a damn whether you live or die, and there’s something strangely compelling about that concept.
“You are not great and powerful”, says developer Lo-Fi Games. “You don’t have more ‘hit points’ than everyone else.” A bold stance for a genre where you’re often cast as an all-powerful hero. But it’s also an exciting one, because RPGs are some of the tropiest games around.
Kenshi has been in development for almost a decade. The first video of the game in action was posted on Lo-Fi’s YouTube channel in 2008, but it’s nearing a full release after arriving on Steam Early Access in 2013. It’s a hugely ambitious game, taking place in a hand-crafted world that adds up to 870 square kilometers of space.
Lo-Fi says this is to give players a sense of adventure and freedom. Crossing this vast landscape, fighting storms, hunger, carnivorous wildlife, and cannibals should feel like a hard-fought journey. And, in fitting with the game’s nihilistic tone, the size of the world also adds to your feeling of insignificance.
When you start a new game, there are no objectives, no story to follow. It’s completely open-ended, and your character’s destiny is determined entirely by you. There are lot of ways to play the game, whether you want to become a settler who builds a city, a farmer who grows and harvests food, or a wandering swordsman who lives only for adventure.
But the unpredictable, dangerous world will make your chosen profession difficult. Stray into the wrong part of the map, and there’s a chance you’ll be kidnapped by blue-skinned cannibals, tied to a post, and eaten.
You can make things easier for yourself by choosing a different starting character. The default is the Wanderer, who begins with 1,000 credits, a rusty sword, and the clothes on their back. But start as the Wandering Trader and you’ll have a packmule loaded with goods to trade.
HARD TIMES
There are some stranger ones too, like the Holy Sword, who gets a powerful weapon in the knowledge that it’s stolen and someone might want it back. And if you want to make things harder, you can go for Rock Bottom and start with no gear, no clothes, no money, and a busted arm.
You view the action through a camera floating above the map, moving your character, fighting, and interacting by pointing and clicking, and I’m immediately reminded of Fallout. Not just because of the interface, but the bleak, dusty, desert-like setting.
However, Kenshi ’s world is a lot more low-tech. There are buildings, agriculture, and primitive technology, but people still fight with swords. You can also control multiple characters, which means if one is captured by slavers or cannibals, you can send a team of others in to rescue them.
There’s also a personality and trait system, meaning some characters won’t behave exactly how you want them to, adding yet more unpredictability. Kenshi wants to make your life difficult, but with the intention of making every success, even minor ones, meaningful.
I don’t know if Lo-Fi will pull this off, but I hope it does. It would be a challenge for a giant development studio, never mind a small indie team. But one thing it isn’t short of is cool ideas, and Kenshi is one of the freshest, most interesting takes on the RPG genre I’ve seen for some time. Andy Kelly