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. 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 center of the universe, and you are not special. Unless you work for it.
Steam User 451
First time starting. Set off in a random direction, got chased by a bunch of bandits and beaten up. Died after 3 ingame hours.
Second start, wandered around a town, got into a bar fight, died. survival time 2 ingame hours.
Third start, picked a different starting location in the desert got sniped by a noble. Survival time 15 minutes ingame time.
Fourth start, beaten up by some starving beggars, wake up again badly wounded to limp to a town for help, got eaten by beak things. Survival time 1 day 2 and a half hours. Improvement!
Almost 5000 played hours later, I've destroyed factions and nations, made fortunes as a traveling trader, stole from the rich (and the poor) as a lone ninja, travelled as a nomad, built my own city, been a slave and a slave trader, a bounty hunter, a ronin, a farmer, a fisherman. I've cleared ancient ruins and salvaged old tech, survived camping in the wilderness and killed a leviathan in a duel. I've lived many lives, died many deaths to get there...It's been a journey.
10/10 would die many deaths again.
Steam User 521
This game is not for the faint of heart. It's hard as hell, frequently counter-intuitive, a little buggy, and it is often truly ridiculous.
During my first major base build, I underestimated the amount of resources I would need to fully construct my defenses. I had built a long oval of defensive walls with rock mines and material crafting elements on one side with an open half on the other side of the "oval". There were not enough materials to create a gate or finish the walls as I had used the remaining materials to build a small building for housing and storing resources near the open half.
After the first few days, a group of bandits showed up demanding tribute. Instead of talking to them, I had my boys sit on the other side of the base in stealth mode behind the rock mines. The bandits charged into the base and took up residence in my small storage building. Meanwhile, I kept mining while trying to plot a way to remove them, but I couldn't think on it long before a second group of bandits showed up. The same thing happened. I kept my worker bees in stealth while this second group plunged into the storage shed. Nothing happened. All quiet.
Now, I'm really in a pickle now. Small bandit groups aren't that tough, but my workers were laborers with mediocre weapons and armor. Not much good in a serious fight, and there were two separate groups of sweaty desert bandits standing shoulder to shoulder in my storage building. There must have been several dozen of them at least. I'm about to run to the nearest fishing town to hire some mercenaries when the third group shows up. These new guys are rude and hella nude. They're also hungry as hell for human flesh, and there had to be around 50 of them.
The cannibals stood at the open half of the base for a hot minute before they too plunged into the storage building. It was absolute pandemonium. The bandits are screaming, the cannibals are yelling, and there's blood everywhere. Earlier, I had my boys build some internal walls with crossbows on them, and we're sniping the all out brawl that's occurring. The moment one of the bandits goes down a cannibal will scoop him up and take him to some far away dinner table. It's like a self cleaning mess.
After about 30 minutes, nothing and no one remains except for some bodies, arms, legs, and a massive amount of blood. The cannibals aren't even interested in eating my guys, and the few remaining bandits are simply hobbling away. I then built the remainder of the base so that the front gate was partially submerged in the ocean. Any would be hostiles would have to swim to it in full armor just to knock, and this never happened again.
God help me, I can't stop playing this stupid shit.
Steam User 423
I had to eat my dismembered legs to survive my journey across the desert.
Steam User 250
One of the best games hands down. I started off as a lowly nobody and eventually ended up kidnapping the head of a major faction only to cut off his limbs and feed it to my dogs, only for him to escape my prison to come back to my camp with cybernetic arms and legs to wipe my army out with his own. I was imprisoned then sold to slavery for 100 days of hard labor...then made my escape and now i'm planning my revenge (even though I started the conflict). lol. Best and most fun game ever.
Steam User 501
Most games can be described by what you CAN do.
In Dying Light, you CAN climb buildings.
In Factorio, you CAN make a world spanning factory.
In Dead Space, you CAN take off an enemy's limbs.
In Call of Duty, you CAN be bored.
Kenshi is a game where you CAN. You CAN do many things, too many for me to list here.
But Kenshi is more than that. Kenshi is a game where you WILL.
You WILL have no idea what is happening.
You WILL get your ass kicked.
You WILL make enemies.
You WILL be enslaved.
You WILL go broke.
You WILL starve.
After that, and only after that,
piece by piece,
you WILL understand.
You WILL find a crappy sword.
You WILL fight.
You WILL lose,
and from that you WILL become strong.
You WILL meet allies, even a few friends.
You WILL take a piece of this world as your own.
You WILL destroy those who attempt to take it.
You WILL build yourself up, piece by piece.
You WILL wield the weapons and armor of legends.
Then one day,
Once you have left behind any memories of slavery and starvation,
Once your body no longer buckles under relentless pressure,
Once you are no longer alone, and march at the head of a legion,
You WILL bend this world to your will.
So what WILL you do?
Steam User 352
Good game. Recommend to people who are neurodivergent, or unemployed.
Steam User 270
I still vividly remember the first review I read of this game with the line "This game doesn't care about you" as the basic premise and it sticks to me to this day. Years later I realize how wrong they were about Kenshi. Not only does this game care about you, it wants to protect you from yourself and keep pushing you forward to success. Dying is actually kind of difficult unless you tweak the settings or act like a complete idiot. Yes, in fact, this game cares about you so much that you are REWARDED for failing. You grow stronger with each battle and even earn more xp for losing. Even with all the settings cranked up to be the most brutal, bandits will never steal your equipped items if they beat you unconscious and rob you, and even if you get imprisoned, the stuff they take is locked away in a chest and never despawns. This game does care about you, in fact, it wants you to succeed, like a stoic parent that knows you need to grow up to be strong so you are prepared for the brutal world ahead of you. It will punish you for stupid mistakes, and reward you for clever strategies, and even if you get beaten nearly to death, you will come out of that experience stronger than ever. In fact, the best way to get stronger early on is to let bandits repeatedly beat the piss out of you. There are so many ways to make money and so many safety nets to pull you back from the brink of losing it all. Even being maimed and losing a limb isn't the end, because you can buy or steal robotic limbs that are as good if not better than what you had before.
I held off for years from buying this game because I believed the top review at the time telling me "this game doesn't care about you" and I took that as "you can lose everything in an instant because this game isn't fair" but that just isn't true. Even if you lose a limb, even if you nearly starve to death, even if you get robbed or enslaved you will almost always come out stronger than ever. This game wants to make you a god by beating you down and refining you under massive pressure to be the diamond it knows you can be.
Don't make the mistake I did, get this game and know that no matter how bad things get or how grim things appear to be, you will almost always have a way out that will end with you tougher than before. Just remember, stay away from the Beakthings.