Kenshi

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. Purchase and upgrade your own buildings to use as safe fortified havens when things go bad, or use them to start up a business. Aid or oppose the various factions in the world while striving for the strength and wealth necessary to simply survive in the harsh desert. Train your men up from puny victims to master warriors. Carry your wounded squad mates to safety and get them all home alive. FEATURES Freeform gameplay in a seamless game world in the largest single-player RPG world since Daggerfall, stretching over 870 square kilometers. The game will never seek to limit you or restrict your personal play style. Custom design as many characters as you want and build up a whole squad to fight for you. Characters will grow and become stronger with experience, not just in their stats but their appearance too. Build a base where you can research new technologies, upgrade your defences and craft new gear. Original take on the RTS-RPG hybrid genre. No "hero" characters with artificially stronger stats than everybody else- Every character and NPC you meet is potentially an equal, and has a name, a life. You are not the chosen one. You're not great and powerful. You don't have more 'hitpoints' than everyone else. You are not the centre of the universe, and you are not special. Unless you work for it. Purchase and upgrade your own buildings to use as safe fortified havens when things go bad, or use them to start up a business. Variation and possibilities of gameplay. Be good, be evil, be a businessman, be a thief, live in a town, live in the desert, travel alone, travel in hordes, build a fortress, raze a city. Devote yourself to freeing slaves, or maybe end up a slave yourself. Dynamic, ever changing world. Support or hinder whoever you wish, or keep to yourself, the world won't stop moving. This is not just a "game", you are living and surviving in a simulated world. Get captured by cannibals and eaten alive , or sold off by slavers and forced to work in the mines. These are not scripted events, just a regular part of this chaotic world that ruins your life by chance. Anything can happen, yet anything can be overcome if you have the strength. Absolutely no Level-scaling. The world does not level up along with y

Kenshi è quasi interamente opera di una sola persona, Chris Hunt, che iniziò a svilupparlo tra il 2006 e il 2008 con il motore Ogre. Per i primi anni, per mantenersi, lavorava part-time come guardia giurata. Dopo circa cinque anni il gioco cominciò ad avere un primo successo e Hunt poté lasciare quel lavoro e dedicarsi solo a Kenshi; fino al 2013 lavorò da solo, poi riuscì ad assumere una piccola squadra.

L'idea nacque dall'insofferenza di Hunt per i giochi di ruolo che tengono il giocatore per mano all'inizio. Il suo motto era considerarsi il nemico del giocatore: in Kenshi si parte senza abilità e senza una storia lineare, liberi di fare ciò che si vuole in un mondo ostile. Hunt lo definiva «sword-punk» e si ispirò alle storie dei ronin erranti e all'immagine di un sopravvissuto che vaga in una terra desolata.

La mappa, di circa 870 chilometri quadrati, fu pensata per mettere zone pericolose tra il giocatore e le ricompense, con regioni e fazioni dal carattere ben diverso. Kenshi fu tra i primi giochi dell'accesso anticipato di Steam, nel marzo 2013, ed è uscito in versione completa il 6 dicembre 2018, dopo circa dodici anni di sviluppo.