Kenshi

Kenshi (2018) is a single player role-play game where you have complete control over your character and how they live their life. With no central story, it allows you to go anywhere and play however you like, be that as a city dweller who never ventures into the wider world or a ruthless warlord who fights the other factions. With a detailed environment, no story to follow, and limitless ways to play, it offers a uniquely open experience.

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You first choose your character's appearance in the comprehensive character customiser, then pick where your life starts: maybe in a city as a lowly but strong and capable slave, or out in the wilderness with little hope for survival. You can then decide where to go and what you want to do, be that set up a new city, become a crime lord, or do anything else you can think of, so long as you don't get killed along the way. You can also decide whether to go it alone or recruit other characters to join your cause, either as equals or subjects.

It's a very difficult game by design, meant to resemble real post-apocalyptic life as closely as possible. There's no level-scaling, meaning everyone else starts out stronger than you, but you can gradually gain more strength. Depending on your choices, merely surviving can be nigh on impossible, or you can rise up to become the central power in the land.

It's an entirely unique approach to the role-playing genre, where you have no tasks to do or story to follow, besides the one you make yourself, in a creative experience that's unlike any other.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Kenshi 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 23 months ago.