The Fool on the Hill: What's so good about Kenshi?

I've been writing for literally fifteen years about the game I'd like to build, but assumed I couldn't because one person can't possibly build all the systems and assets required for a full scale open world game. And while I have been messing about and producing literally only tiny scraps of code, one person — Chris Hunt — has actually done it.

The game he has created — largely working alone — has many of the features, and much of the richness, of the game I've been writing about. The difference is, his is finished, it works, and it's being played.

So, what's so good about Kenshi?

In Brief

Kenshi is a large and visually beautiful open world with a varied environment, deep lore, a variety of races and cultures, an adequately modelled ecosystem and economy, where there is extremely limited scripted plot, and thus where most of the gameplay emerges organically from the world itself and from the game mechanics.

The World

Kenshi is essentially a sandbox: almost literally, much of the landscape of the world is open desert. The world is 870 square kilometres, which is larger than Bahrain but smaller than the Faroe Islands; in other words, it's pretty small by real world standards, but pretty large by game world standards. By contrast Skyrim is less than 40 square kilometres; the whole of The Witcher III with expansions is 142; Death Stranding is 370. Considered as an open world role playing game, it's pretty big.

Visually, the modelling isn't nearly on the level of detail as the other games I've compared it to; for a game of this scale, made largely by one person, it couldn't be. But, actually, it doesn't have to be: the art style makes the simple modelling both visually appealing and believable, or at least not stretching the limits of willing suspension of disbelief. And, a consequence of the lack of detail is that the game engine can present many more active characters on the screen at the same time for a given level of graphics processor performance.

Flora

It's also pretty varied, with many distinctly different biomes. While the whole world is post-post-apocalyptic and mostly arid (which is an excellent excuse for not much vegetation), there's everything from flat open desert through steep gullied mountains with sparse forest, turgid tropical swamp lands, to post-nuclear wastelands where acid rain is a real danger.

The models are fairly simple; there's no attempt at photorealism. But at the same time they have a consistent art style and are fairly persuasive. It helps that there's no attempt to model an earth-like biosphere. The vegetation is recognisable as vegetation, but it's all alien vegetation.

Fauna

There are only a few species of animals, with some, the bulls, canids, goats, gorillos, land-bats and 'garrus' — vaguely cameloid beasts of burden — being recognisable as something like mammals. 'Beak things' — fast moving and aggressive predatory giraffe-like carnivores — may be part of the same group, but lay eggs in communal nests; and leviathans, enormous creatures most easily described as land-whales — may, too, but they don't look particularly mammalian. What all these animals share in common is that they have a life-cycle, growing from infants through juveniles to adults and finally to elders.

There are another group which are not mammal-like, but rather arthropod-like, including crabs and various sorts of spiders. The arthropod-like creatures are all quadrupeds, but all share a crab-like gait. They do not appear to have implemented life-cycles. There are also arthropod-like robots, but these are not represented as animals, and certainly don't have life-cycles.

Finally there are 'raptors', which are bipedal, semi-aquatic, vaguely reptilian creatures, and do not appear to have implemented life cycles.

All these different types of animal are defend themselves vigorously if attacked; most are aggressive if approached closely; and some are just plain aggressive. Certainly in early game, non-domestic animals of all types are best avoided. Beak things are particularly dangerous.

Birds are seen flying overhead in various places; in other places, robotic flying jellyfish things float overhead, sometimes in dense swarms. However, so far I have not seen evidence that it's possible to interact with either type of flying object.

Not all types of animal are present in all parts of the map. Leviathans are mainly in the north-west; crabs, unsurprisingly, mainly on the coast (and, indeed, mainly the east coast); beak-things mainly in open desert areas.

As far as I can see the predation patterns and population dynamics of these creatures are not modelled; rather, the animals are just there, and if you kill a lot in an area, when you go back there will still be a lot there.

Nevertheless this is an adequately and satisfyingly rich model of an ecosystem, at least for a game whose objective is not ecosystem management.

Generally, animals have three roles from the point of view of game play. Firstly, they're almost all extremely challenging to fight, especially in early game when your characters lack skills and equipment. Secondly, if killed, resources — chiefly meat and hides — can be harvested from most of them. Finally, bulls and garrus can be used by the player as beasts of burden, although as far as I can see there's no mechanism for domesticating wild animals; instead you have to buy domesticated animals from specialist animal traders.

Sound design

Sound design in Kenshi is sparse. There is a score; music does play some of the time, with a minor key, melancholy, oriental feel. This music is constructed as very short musical units, written and recorded for three 'layers', which are then composed together randomly by the game engine to create an overall musical framework which sounds consistent but never repeats.

When there is no music — which is most of the time — there are environmental sounds: wind, rain, in forests bird song and woodpecker hammering; around people, the sound of footsteps; around combat, the sounds of combat. But it's all sparse, and it's all very much in keeping with the eroded landscapes and the sparse vegetation, telling a story of an ancient, ravaged, harsh, sad world.

Population

The world of Kenshi is populated with a number of races. Two of these, 'Greenlanders' (white people) and 'Scorchlanders' (black people) are explicitly human. A third, the Shek, are evolved from humans, and, apart from having horns and bony plates on their skin, are pretty much humanoid.

Another race (or group of races) is the 'Hivers', who I think are intended to be understood as being evolutionarily related to the spider-like arthropods rather than to humans, but who are nevertheless, like humans, upright bipedal quadrupeds.

Finally, there are 'Skeletons', who are immortal mechanical robots, but nevertheless also upright bipedal quadrupeds who act much like humans.

All these races share the same movement repertoire; none have modelled life-cycles. Although humans are humans and, unlike skeletons, explicitly mortal, there are absolutely no children. Although humans, Shek and Hivers all have male and female individuals, sexuality, romance and child-rearing are not modelled and barely mentioned. Some individuals are said to be children of other individuals, but all are presented in the game as adults; one character asks to have his 'debts in the flophouse' paid off, and I interpret this as meaning a brothel, but there is no brothel that you can find in any of the cities. Similarly, while some cultures capture and keep slaves, there's no suggestion that female slaves are valued for anything but labour.

Economy

There are shops within cities in which you can buy and sell goods. The prices do not appear to be dynamic; a surplus of some good in a city does not lead to a fall of the price of that good in that city, and a scarcity does not lead to an increase. Nevertheless there are price differentials between cities, allowing the player to earn an income as a travelling merchant; and there are non-player merchant caravans within the game which the player can travel with, for safety, or trade with on the road.

If you destroy all farms adjacent to a city, that city will fall into decline, but it does not seem to me that there's any real modelling of the flow of either food or taxes from the farms to the cities. So, in summary, I think the economy modelling is extremely shallow — far more shallow than I would want to develop — but it's adequate provided the player doesn't examine it too closely.

Cultures

The population is divided into a number of cultures. Some of these cultures are exclusive to a particular race; only Hivers can be citizens of Hive cities, for example, and non-hivers are generally not welcome within them except as temporary visitors. The Shek are generally contemptuous towards humans ('flatskins'), and only exceptionally make them welcome; and the Holy Nation accepts only able-bodied human males as full citizens (although able-bodied human females are tolerated, presumably, although this is not explicit, for breeding purposes). Others, such as the anti-slavers, accept members from all races.

Politics is semi-dynamic; if you capture or kill leaders within a given faction, other leaders will emerge, or the faction will fall apart and its cities will be taken over by other factions. This is, actually, behind the scenes, scripted, but it does allow the political situation in the game to respond — and respond quite radically — to the player's actions.

There are many factions, but I'll list only the largest and most militarily active here.

The Holy Nation

The Holy Nation is a xenophobic, puritanical, theocratic autocracy. It's not clear to me whether private citizens can own slaves within the Holy Nation, but the state owns a lot of slaves, working on farms, in quarries and in mines.

As I've said above, citizens are able-bodied human males. In principle Scorchlander (Black) males are acceptable, but in practice, the Holy Nation is overwhelmingly white. Disabled people are barely tolerated; disabled people who use prosthetics may be killed on sight.

The Holy Nation occupy the centre of the continent. If you develop enmity with them — and they are both extremely dislikeable and extremely easily offended — then navigation becomes more awkward. Allegedly, if you become friends with them, starting in Holy Nation territory is relatively easy because it's well policed, but I haven't tried this.

The Holy Nation is at war with all other significant factions, and with most of the insignificant ones.

The United Cities

The United Cities are an extreme capitalist oligarchy. Slavery is everywhere; ordinary citizens can own slaves; kidnapping and enslaving people is a recognised and legal trade; poverty is a crime for which you can be imprisoned. Psychoactive drugs — other than alcohol — are illegal but can be traded (illegally) in some places. Citizens can be f any race (including Skeleton), but aristocrats are almost all human and Hivers are almost all peasants.

Each city is ruled by an oligarch/aristocrat; one, Heft, is ruled by the Emperor Tengu, who is the feudal superior to the lords ruling the other cities.

The United Cities are mainly in the north west, and in the south, of the map. At the start of the game they are at war with the Holy Nation and with some of the minor factions; they have not been doing well, and the city of Bast has been sacked and destroyed by the Holy Nation.

The Sheck Kingdom

The Sheck Kingdom (actually ruled by a queen) is an autocratic, militaristic, racist nation in the west of the continent, which accepts only members of the Sheck race as citizens (or subjects). Canonically, at the time of the start of the game, the Sheck Kingdom has been at war with the Holy Nation for some time and has not been doing well.

Combat and the Injury Model

It's a complaint I frequently make about modern games that too much emphasis is placed on modelling combat; that generally the major way of interacting with non-player characters is to kill them. And that is especially true of Kenshi: while there is a very simple and shallow dialogue system, few non-player characters have any conversational repertoire at all and of those that do there is very little depth to it indeed.

That is, to me, disappointing; but, this game is one man's labour of love, and creating rich dialogue models for thousands of characters is an enormous amount of work. So Kenshi is a game in which the main way of interacting with other characters is to kill them… However, combat, and the injury model, is implemented in a bleak and slightly macabre way which is characteristic of Kenshi; characteristically of Kenshi, it is very well done.

Weapons are divided into three categories: blunt weapons, chiefly staffs; edged weapons, chiefly swords, and ranged weapons, chiefly crossbows. Skill with these different weapons is developed separately, and indeed there are specialisations for different classes of swords.

You develop skill with a weapon class by using weapons of that class; as you develop skill, not only are your attacks and parries more effective, but you gain new attack animations. The animation of combat is fairly well done, although rather slow. You can't really micromanage combat; rather, your character(s) fight, and you give them tactical direction.

However, where injury is taken is tracked, with separate injury scores for head, chest, stomach and each limb. If the head is injured, the character is likely to become temporarily unconscious. If head, chest or stomach take too much injury, the character will die; if a limb takes too much injury, it will be severed.

And that's interesting in itself, but there's more. Once a character has acquired a significant injury, that injury will typically deteriorate until first aid is applied. It does occasionally happen that benevolent non-player characters, even strangers, will perform first aid but you absolutely cannot rely on this.

After the deterioration of injuries has been halted with first aid, bed rest is effective in restoring the injured body parts to health. I think that they will recover eventually without bed rest, but bed rest certainly greatly accelerates the process.

Obviously, a severed limb does not recover and does not grow back; however, the world of Kenshi has cyberpunk-style prosthetic limbs, some of which are very much better than organic limbs (although the good ones are very expensive). So losing a limb in this world is not necessarily a permanent handicap.

The consequence of all these mechanisms together is that, if your character suffers quite minor injuries in a fight and becomes unconscious, they are likely to bleed out and die before regaining consciousness unless there is someone to provide first aid — which is why it is wise to acquire a companion.

Game Play

There are a number of starting positions, in most of which you start with a single character. Unlike games like The Witcher series, and the Bethesda games, for example, you can recruit other characters and end up with a squad of many characters you control. Unlike the BioWare games — Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and so on, you can have not just four characters in your squad, but an apparently unlimited number.

Early game

Starting is hard. Inexperienced players should definitely take one of the starts marked as 'easy'. So far I've experimented with

The Wanderer start

This places you in The Hub — a relatively safe but not prosperous city with some local mineable resources — with a basic weapon and a little bit of money. It's supposed to be the easiest start but it isn't easy, and I have to say I died (several times in different ways) before I got very far.

The Holy Sword start

This again places you in The Hub, but this time with an excellent sword taken from the corpse of a senior Holy Nation officer. This marks you as a thief, and you start with the enmity of both the Holy Nation and the United Cities. Realistically you're probably going to end up with enmity with one or both of these factions, but starting with enmity with both severely limits your options. It will also take your character some time to learn to be able to use the sword effectively.

I've had more success with this start, but have failed to get to a point where I had a sustainable economy for my character from which I could make progress.

The Guy with a Dog start

This is the start I've had most fun with, but it's really hard (although said to be one of the easier starts). You start in the vicinity of the city of Bast, recently sacked by the United Cities. You have a puppy. You have virtually nothing else, there is very little food about, and both you and the puppy are hungry. The puppy is also initially very slow, so you're better to pick it up and carry it.

If you don't have a plan, then the puppy is almost certain to starve to death before you get to anywhere where there's food. Bast was a desert oasis, but it's devastated, you can't stay. The desert around is infested with wild dogs which you're not at this stage strong enough to fight, so you need to sneak and/or flee.

It's a long way to any city where you could buy food, and in any case you don't have any cask to buy it with. Hypothetically, if you come across any recently dead animals you can get meat from them, but I have not found any in the vicinity of Bast in any of the three times I've tried this start.

What you will probably find are parties of Holy Nation and United Cities troops fighting one another, and if you sneak onto a battlefield after the fighting has moved elsewhere you can loot corpses on the battlefield for weapons and armour. I have not found any food (which was what I was chiefly looking for) when doing this.

In my most recent and most successful start, I looted equipment from a Holy Nation warrior, then went south west to Okran's Fist, a Holy Nation city, where (to my surprise) I was able to sell the equipment for money to buy food. I then headed west to the city called World's End, occupied by a relatively benign minor faction called the Tech Hunters, but couldn't find a way of earning food money there, so headed on to the village of Flotsam (ditto), and then north to the Fishing Village, where I found that by mining iron full time I could make just enough money to buy just enough dried fish to keep me and the puppy alive.

All this travelling in the early game is stressful. Pretty much any encounter with wild animals or hostile factions (of which there are many) is going to be fatal. But until you find somewhere where you can earn food money, you have to travel.

After about an in-game week of mining iron and nothing else — strictly 'grinding' in gaming terms — I discovered a copper ore resource not too far from the fishing village, which was about twice as profitable as iron mining, and once I'd found that I was able to build up small food reserves which allowed me to take more of a look around.

Two relatively benign factions (as well as many hostile ones) operate along the northern coast; these two benign factions are the Cannibal Hunters and the Flotsam Ninjas. If you follow along behind a Cannibal Hunter or Flotsam Ninja patrol, they probably will deal with any groups of hostiles you meet, you get to see a bit of the scenery, you may get to loot meat from killed animals or relatively low value goods from killed cannibals and bandits, and you may even begin to get a bit of combat experience at the tail end of a fight the patrol has already mostly won.

Also, your pup is growing. After about two in-game weeks it becomes a 'teen', at which point it's not quite as slow, although just as hungry. At about this stage I was able to make sufficient profit from copper mining that I was able to start making solo expeditions into the interior, visiting Flotsam a few times to buy better equipment, and World's End a second time just for the experience.

At four weeks in your dog is adult, and can both keep up with you on the trail and be a useful companion in a fight. The dog can't heal your character if you are injured, though, so not as useful as a sapient companion. You're still extremely vulnerable in wild.

Conclusion — for now

Kenshi is extraordinary; and, as such, Kenshi is an extraordinary achievement. It's an extraordinary achievement by one man, without financial backing, but with a vision and obsessive persistence. It lacks the polish of a multi-million dollar studio production, true. Also, because it takes one person a long time to build a game, it is built with tools which are now quite old, and, especially in visuals and animation, the state of the art has moved on. But it is still extraordinary.

It is not my game. It is not the game I would build. Yes, I would like more character interaction, more repertoire, more richly modelled reputation systems, less emphasis on combat. But the difference is, Chris Hunt has actually built his. And it's a rich, weird, internally consistent, fascinating, challenging, compelling experience.

Comparisons? This is certainly the best game I've played since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt seven years ago; when I've thought about it some more, I may conclude that it's the most influential game I've played since Elite, forty years ago.

In summary, it is extraordinary.

Share on social media