Kenshi Chronicler

Welcome to Kenshi Chronicles. I am the Chronicler, and will be your guide. Kenshi is known as the game that hates you. This reputation is not undeserved. The creator Chris Hunt has a different take on his intent when creating the game. To him it is about how difficult things are worth doing. That with hard work you can overcome hardship. To him, and to me Kenshi is a game about not giving up. It’s about improving over time to accomplish your goals.

Kenshi first came onto my radar from the Dwarf Fortress streamer BlindIRL. This was around the time that Dwarf Fortress went live on Steam. While I have never seen Blind play Kenshi he listed it as a favorite game of his. I checked it out. It was too weird for me. It did not seem to have enough direction for me. I am a fan of open worlds games. I do not get as lost in them as many fans of the genre seem to. From the screenshots, and trailers I watched at the time made the game feel janky, and I did not understand the core gameplay loop. I bounced off of Kenshi upon first inspection.

Kenshi came back onto my radar through another Youtuber. I do not remember how I first came accross Old Man Gamer. He was my true entry into Kenshi. His Kenshi Series “Kenshi: Azegamis Hope” gave me a clear view of the customizable RP potential of the game. Old Man Gamer’s YouTube video style spoke to me. He does a RP forward style of play. It is not highly edited. He does not do voices for his characters. He does make decisions based on how they would react. He sets goals that make sense for his characters. In this series he started as a slave Azegami. Azegami Gained toughness by being beaten by guards. He gathered a crew of like minded slaves. He planned an escape. The crew succeeded. The newly escaped slaves wandered the desert like Moses avoiding slavers. They built a life for themselves by building a base. Base building is an optional mid game gameplay mechanic. They became explorers, aspiring Tech Hunters who went on adventures across many biomes looting ancient ruins filled with lost technology from previous golden ages while avoiding the many horrors of Kenshi. After hours of this series, I was ready to play for myself. I found Kenshi on sale on Steam, and decided it was time to dive in.