Recent reviews by Airwolf

As sorry excuse for a gamer that loves great graphics way too much, I have no idea why i'm so addicted to this game but my god is it fun.

My perspective of using steam for over 16 years and over hundreds of games purchased, I am embarrassed to be one of those people that ALWAYS reads reviews of games but never leaves any himself... ever.
Well until today.

Kenshi really is unlike anyone one game ive ever played. It's a RPG, RTS, Base Builder, Survival, Defence game all rolled in one. I'm probably missing a couple genres.

I'll be honest i visited the store page a few times and saw some review videos and still wasn't a huge fan of what i saw, didn't really seem like my kind of game. How wrong I was. I made the purchase purely out of covid boredom and im so glad I did, feels so good to be so wrong.

Playing the game to begin with i actually started off modded, just the basic mods like reactive world, citizens, blood spiders, copper drill etc. QoL stuff. I'm glad I had my first experience of the game with those mods, they just added that layer of polish that imho Kenshi needed.

My personal experience of this game was it is unforgiving and brutal to learn, you will get your s**t kicked in time and time again, but that is the point. The world, the factions, the character attributes take a lot of time to learn properly and it's so much fun learning about the world of Kenshi. Once you really learn and understand the game, a new start becomes a lot easier. So any website or person giving you knowledge will spoil the game for you, because learning is hard but thats what makes it fun.

The map, is huge but not too huge. Every area has its purpose, it's own feel and style. My respect really goes out to the developers in somehow making this world as interesting as the factions within it. You have to balance your need of wanting to explore with the fear of "am I strong enough?" because if you have to ask, usually the answer is no. My map/faction score - 9.5/10

The base building is awesome. Can be slightly buggy at times but definitely one of the top games for base building fun factor and I think one of the main genres to describe this game is base building because it's so good at it. NPC's interact with the buildings, appropriate assignment of jobs help run your base smoothly, defense and turret placements require some finesse to be efficient. My base building score - 8.5/10

Storyline/Sandbox - To my surprise this game has a good, no, great open world type story and is a sandbox at the same time. I tend to find that developers that are on the lazy side of content and things to do describe their game as a sandbox and I tend to get bored of those games pretty quickly because I like to be challenged (grinding isn't challenging).
Kenshi manages to achieve a story driven sandbox. You are in complete and total control if you wish to participate in the factions and politics of Kenshi but more importantly since the factions cover a diversity of moral directions, it's hard not to get drawn into one or more faction sides (F*** the slavers) and attempt to wipe them out.
My story/lore score - 7/10
My Sandbox score - 9/10

Now it's hard to call a RTS type game as immersive, especially with the graphics being what they are but I really did feel immersed at times (Mods definitely help) Your team mates talk to each other, make jokes, respond to the landscape, respond to their injuries and body modifications (I "!@#$% love Beep), the characters within your team and the strangers of Kenshi all have their own story to tell and do a pretty damn good job at it. You actually care about your team and you find yourself save scumming just in case one of them dies. Except crumblejon, he's way past his expiry.
My immersion score (ignoring graphics) - 8.5/10

The sounds are good but slightly repetitive. On the rare occasion the music did kick in I enjoyed it. I guess the developers designed it this way but I still felt I had to have my own atmospheric music tracks to play in conjunction as the silence was a little... odd.
My sound score - 6/10

Overall I rate this game a solid 9/10 and I am very much looking forward to it's sequel. At times playing this game I would think to myself "man this developer is a genius", the level of creativity and imagination is quite amazing. So amazing in fact that this game deserves my first ever review of any game.

Highly recommend.

Basically Hearthstone on steroid.
Very addictive. Time sink and a money sink too. Play with caution.