Kenshi is an indie passion project from the mind and developmental fingers of Chris Hunt. He's been working on the open-world, sandbox title for more than a decade and despite a lengthy stay in Early Access and plenty of hiccups along the way, the game is finally ready for release. It's slated to make its big debut on December 8 and it will likely continue to be worked on after that with additional features and content.
What's there already in Kenshi is rather impressive though. It's an expansive open, desert world (870 square kilometers) to explore, fight in, trade in, grow, build, learn, and die in. Your character isn't anything special. You're not faster, or better at anything than anyone else. But you can be if you train. In Kenshi, if you want your stamina to go up, you need to run. Improve at thieving? Better stary stealing. You can be and do whatever you want, whether that's a local warlord, fighting against others like yourselves, farming on the outskirts of a great city, adventuring with a trusty hound of the wasteland, or building up a band of ronin and selling your services to whoever can afford it.
Over time you can build up a base of your own, set up trading posts, and run the world if you invest enough time and get lucky enough. But it's quite a slog and the game will beat you down if you let it.
Some may not like that, but Hunt doesn't care:
"I just made Kenshi because I wanted to play it, and if loads of people don’t like it, screw it," he said in a chat with PCGamesN. "I think that’s the best attitude to have if you want to make something great, because you’re not trying to please everyone or tone things down."
Kenshi will debut with a launch price of $30.
