PC Gamer has reviewed the sandbox RPG Kenshi:
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Thanks henriquejr!Kenshi review
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 behaviour, just a ragged web of vicious systems so myriad that they sometimes tangle and fumble and descend into absurdity. But there is a cold order to Kenshi too, a formidable degree of depth that's as impressive as it is stubborn.
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The early going can be cruel; basic survival plans can be easily derailed by a city guard who plants drugs on you then demands money you don't have, or by finding yourself deep in a region inhabited by vicious alien giraffes. It can all get a bit grindy too; it takes a long time before you can handle yourself in a fight, a long time to grow food, and a long time to get around. Even though Kenshi is capable of conjuring great scenarios to break up these anaemic stretches, it doesn't lessen the slog.
But after around 30 hours, I still feel like I've so much to uncover. I've still got to expand from a dustbowl community to a fortress; to send an expedition of battle-hardened warriors out into distant wilds while back at the township artisans and workers rake in profits thanks to the clockwork-like regimen I created. Kenshi is huge, amoral, and opaque enough that I'll be deciphering it it for a very long time.
Score: 84/100 - Work through the presentational ugliness and technical awkwardness, and you'll find an experience of frightening depth.
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