Kenshi is one of the most utterly strange games I've ever had the pleasure of playing, and it holds a special place in my heart. It was the impetus behind one of my first-ever published pieces of games writing, which means you can probably blame it—at least in part—for the fact you have to keep reading my yammering on this very website. Thank you, Kenshi, we'll never forgive you.
Kenshi is bizarre because it is . Its world doesn’t want you there, and its many, many layers can make it difficult to grasp. It's not the kind of thing I'd put down as a surefire hit. Shows what I know: The devs just announced it's sold 2.3 million copies on Steam alone since it hit in 2018, over double the million copies it had sold back in 2020 (I know, I'm a maths whizz).
That's a lot of people who have signed up for an unforgiving series of trials in an open-ended sandbox with no real story but the one your actions generate. My experience is that this story ends with bandits abducting and breaking your legs, but apparently 2.3 million people are also interested in it. Who'd have thought it?
That's not the only number the devs at Lo-Fi have…
