From Zero To…

Become a ruler, a nomad or a frustrated nobody in KENSHI.

- Robert Zak

In my time with Kenshi, I’ve crossed swamps so vast that I haven’t dared return. I’ve been beaten shitless by a pack of goats that were intended to feed my rabble of listless nomads. I’ve been a shopkeeper and a thief, a lone wanderer and a slave, and I’ve been an entire community of people working together to—one day— erect our own city in the wasteland. One day.

None of these events were part of questlines. There’s no such regimentation in Kenshi, no tangible sense of scripted behavior, just a web of vicious systems so numerous that they sometimes tangle and fumble and descend into absurdity.

Upon creating your squad of up to six starting characters, you’re dumped into a dauntingly large post-apocalyptic world. All of your skills start at or around zero, and you work on them simply by doing. You’ll probably spend your first several hours as a lowly scavenger—sticking to the shadows, leveling up your stealth, and scurrying in after skirmishes between the various factions and fauna to loot the dead.

Beyond that? Perhaps you search the wilderness for artifacts or lore titbits, hunt down bounties for the myriad factions, join up with anti-slavers, or set up shop on a trade route and try to make a living.