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Kenshi
50
CD-Action
It took Chris Hunt and his small team 12 years to develop Kenshi and that unfortunately shows. The game utilizes an archaic engine, is poorly optimised and hideous most of the time. It also does next to nothing to help the player get a grasp of its mechanics, and, as it happens, their complexity are Kenshi’s most important aspect. I would be happy to love this game, because I understand and applaud Hunt’s idea of completely open gameplay, but loving Kenshi is extremely hard. [02/2019, p.47]
Do not trust your first impression - this game is a true gem. Elaborate, huge, unbridled, stylish, fresh, captivatingly different. The only blemish is its poor performance and many bugs.
An intriguing RPG/Survival hybrid sandbox that invites you to experiment in the world it presents. Some technical hiccups interrupt the open world and the freeform nature definitely isn’t for everyone but if you are after something different, Kenshi is the very definition of that.
10
Oxthron
de los mejores juegos que he jugado, esperando con ansias el 2,grcias por esta joya oculta
4
Onxymonx
I don't know, for a game that's described as this vast and complex sandbox where you can do anything, there sure is little incentive to do anything at all. In the standard start, you are plopped into a dead-ish little village where you basically can't afford anything other than food and bed.I was really looking forward to exploring around, seeing if I can find a person to help or someone to follow, a cause to join, but apparently that's not a part of the game. There are mercenaries who want you to hire them, but there are no opportunities for yourself to offer your services to anyone else. In a game that bases its marketing on you being equal to the npcs and not a "chosen one" character, that's extremely contradictory. You are the chosen one, because you're the only character that seems to act on their own. I found a faction that called themselves the Shinobi Thieves and thought they would be my saving, that they would give me a story to create, a cause to join. But alas, all you get is "So you want to become a Shinobi Thief hehe?" You can't even ask what the hell that means. It doesn't matter that "all NPCs have their own lives" if you can't even talk to the majority of ****'s supposedly a good and huge sandbox that gives you loads of tools to create your own narrative, but honestly the seams of this simulation are so easy to ripple and see through that I felt I was better off refunding. I know I played a very short time, but after fully exploring the starting location, there was nothing to engage with. If I were to "create my own narrative", it would all be in my head, not in the game.
9
Gianthawk213
Kenshi feels less like a traditional video game and more like a forgotten chronicle buried beneath sand and rust. It does not hand you a story. It gives you a world dense enough for stories to emerge naturally from failure, survival, fear, obsession, and **** will lose. Repeatedly. You will be beaten, enslaved, starved, abandoned in the dust, stripped of your limbs, your plans, and your confidence. And yet, for reasons difficult to explain, you continue walking through its wastelands.Because Kenshi is not truly about victory. It is about transformation.Little by little, the game stops confronting you with enemies and begins confronting you with yourself: your impatience, your greed, your pride, your inability to let go, your desperate need to survive one more day. Every mistake becomes part of your history. Every scar becomes **** world is harsh, strange, poetic, and almost completely indifferent to your existence. Cities feel temporary. Factions rise and decay without caring whether you live or die. The silence of its deserts carries a weight that few games ever **** somehow, within that brutality, Kenshi creates something rare: genuine attachment. Not through scripted heroism, but through the fragile stories you create yourself. A starving drifter becomes a leader. A mutilated survivor becomes a legend. A ruined outpost slowly becomes a city.Very few games trust the player enough to be this unforgiving, this opaque, and this free. Kenshi does. And that is precisely why it stays with you long after you stop playing.

Kenshi

Released On: 
Nov 21, 2011
Metascore
Generally Favorable
75
User score
Generally Favorable
8.4
My Score
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
75
78% Positive
7 Reviews
22% Mixed
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
Jan 8, 2019
84
PC Gamer
Work through the presentational ugliness and technical awkwardness, and you’ll find an experience of frightening depth.
Feb 25, 2019
80
Games.cz
Do not trust your first impression - this game is a true gem. Elaborate, huge, unbridled, stylish, fresh, captivatingly different. The only blemish is its poor performance and many bugs.
User score
Generally Favorable
8.4
83% Positive
338 Ratings
8% Mixed
32 Ratings
10% Negative
39 Ratings
  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
Jun 23, 2026
10
Oxthron
de los mejores juegos que he jugado, esperando con ansias el 2,grcias por esta joya oculta
Oct 16, 2025
10
SouffrorMeta
Le jeu est laid et mal optimisé à cause de son moteur vieillissant.... Mais ce sont ses seuls défauts. Pour le reste je n'ai jamais vu un jeu aussi riche et aussi surprenant. Un monde vaste où vous pouvez faire à peu près tout ce que vous voulez et devenir qui vous voulez. À cela s'ajoute une communauté très active et de nombreux modes qui vous permettent de personnaliser un peu plus votre jeu. J'ai mis du temps à m'y mettre mais aujourd'hui il est le deuxième jeu auquel j'ai le plus joué de ma vie.... Et ça il l'a fait sur 1 an **** j'en ai 32 ! Je ne saurais définir ce jeu car il rentre dans la catégorie des bacs à sable et que seul vous pourrez le définir. Vous préférez en faire un jeu de gestion et gérer votre colonie, c'est possible. Vous préférez en faire un RPG et entraîner votre personnage principal, c'est possible. Vous préférez être un agriculteur et faire vos petites cultures, c'est possible. Vous préférez les RTS et créer des armées pour envahir vos ennemis, c'est possible. Bref les possibilités sont si nombreuses et vous pouvez les mixer entre elles ! Ah ! Et le jeu a été réalisé par un seul et unique mec...
Dec 31, 2018
80
Meristation
Kenshi is not a normal game and it's necessary to understand the long development and the intention of the developer to judge it. With its infinite possibilities, there's quite nothing like it and it's a dream come true for some players, but others will find the dated graphics and poor optimization unacceptable. Still, to create such an open world so well crafted with such a small team deserves the utmost respect
Dec 6, 2018
80
Multiplayer.it
Kenshi is the Dark Souls of the hardcore RPG segment.
Jan 14, 2019
75
GameGrin
An intriguing RPG/Survival hybrid sandbox that invites you to experiment in the world it presents. Some technical hiccups interrupt the open world and the freeform nature definitely isn’t for everyone but if you are after something different, Kenshi is the very definition of that.
Dec 6, 2018
61
GameSpace
A hardcore, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi survival game that is nothing if not challenging. Despite being in beta and harboring a variety of issues, Kenshi shows great potential; and its beta status leaves hope that some of that potential will be realized. This is a game that is very difficult to become established in, but that just adds value to your investment of time and strategy.
Mar 25, 2019
50
CD-Action
It took Chris Hunt and his small team 12 years to develop Kenshi and that unfortunately shows. The game utilizes an archaic engine, is poorly optimised and hideous most of the time. It also does next to nothing to help the player get a grasp of its mechanics, and, as it happens, their complexity are Kenshi’s most important aspect. I would be happy to love this game, because I understand and applaud Hunt’s idea of completely open gameplay, but loving Kenshi is extremely hard. [02/2019, p.47]
See All 9 Critic Reviews
Nov 21, 2025
10
HoshiOs
Este juego es una obra de arte, detras de cada bug, de cada pantalla de carga y cada bajon de fps se encuentra el juego mas entretenido, rico en lore y con mecanicas quiza no nuevas pero tan bien usadas y tanta variedad que kenshi es uno de esos juegos que tu primera partida es un bodrio, probablemente termines desintalandolo (como hice yo) porque el juego es tan abrumadormente grande y te toma tan poco de la mano que uno no esta acostumbrado, los tutoriales son solo por escrito y nadie los lee yo incluido, kenshi es como la vida misma, la mejor forma de aprender y es prueba y error. su mundo es tan basto y tan peligroso que te hace andar atento en todo momento, nisiquiera puedes derrotar a un muerto de hambre desnutrido, pero nunca te sientes tan bien en un juego como cuando derrotas a un enemigo en kenshi, ni hablar de un jefe o inclusive una faccion enemiga al completo (Nisiquiera los souls se comparan) no es un juego de habilidad aunque esta si sirva, es un juego donde todo requiere planeacion y algo de suerte, la cantidad de veces que terminas saliendo beneficiado de un evento totalmente catastrofico es gigante (Tambien sucede alrevez) kenshi es un juego realmente UNICO, 200+ horas y aun sigo jugandolo con mods, el que no haya jugado kenshi no conoce la verdadera experiencia RPG Postapocaliptico
Dec 29, 2025
7
TheSliverMan
This game gets really boring after playing for a short time. I need at least 75 characters so I’m adding this to make it that long
Sep 22, 2024
7
Dangusse
i'm editing my review after the game became unplayable due to infinite loading screens. i tried all three recent autosaves and had the same issue, so my file is basically gone unless i want to revert to a significantly dated backup. i'd mostly maxed out my tech tree with the exception of a few recipes i need to find, trained up a full army of skeletons in combat and labor, and it takes a lot of grind to get there just to find that your file is inaccessible. essentially, the more you progress in the game, the more likely your file will become corrupted in some way. the game is in the process of being ported to unreal, and the sequel will probably have less bugs, but it's really difficult to recommend kenshi due to technical issues that essentially punish progress. [i recommend that you use a lot of quality of life mods, since kenshi was made mostly by a single person and has a lot of bugs or issues. i also recommend that you don't use too many non canon or complete overhaul mods, since there is a point to many aspects of it's vanilla state. it's still very much worth playing if you are okay with some of that, and the game is not as oppressively difficult or bleak as many reviews and youtubers make it out to be. if you use the right settings, it's just a nice open world RTS with lots of RPG elements.]
Jun 10, 2026
4
Onxymonx
I don't know, for a game that's described as this vast and complex sandbox where you can do anything, there sure is little incentive to do anything at all. In the standard start, you are plopped into a dead-ish little village where you basically can't afford anything other than food and bed.I was really looking forward to exploring around, seeing if I can find a person to help or someone to follow, a cause to join, but apparently that's not a part of the game. There are mercenaries who want you to hire them, but there are no opportunities for yourself to offer your services to anyone else. In a game that bases its marketing on you being equal to the npcs and not a "chosen one" character, that's extremely contradictory. You are the chosen one, because you're the only character that seems to act on their own. I found a faction that called themselves the Shinobi Thieves and thought they would be my saving, that they would give me a story to create, a cause to join. But alas, all you get is "So you want to become a Shinobi Thief hehe?" You can't even ask what the hell that means. It doesn't matter that "all NPCs have their own lives" if you can't even talk to the majority of ****'s supposedly a good and huge sandbox that gives you loads of tools to create your own narrative, but honestly the seams of this simulation are so easy to ripple and see through that I felt I was better off refunding. I know I played a very short time, but after fully exploring the starting location, there was nothing to engage with. If I were to "create my own narrative", it would all be in my head, not in the game.
Feb 24, 2026
4
valsaven
A very specific game, more fun to watch on stream than to play. It has a variety of possibilities and mechanics, but it's a sandbox and has no real goal. Even though I've played a lot of "games without a goal" like Minecraft or X3, I quickly got bored with both here and RimWorld. So, if you really liked that game, try RimWorld - it's very similar and you might like it.
See All 409 User Reviews
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Summary A free-roaming squad based RPG. Focusing on open-ended sandbox gameplay features rather than a linear story. Be a trader, a thief, a rebel, a warlord, an adventurer, a farmer, a slave, or just food for the cannibals. Research new equipment and craft new gear.
  • PC
Nov 21, 2011
  • Lo-Fi Games
Lo-Fi Games
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