Kenshi

I have never before played a game that punished you so harshly and still left you alive. You are the primordial villager about to begin an epic quest, but starting out you are the weakest thing in the entire game. There is no newbie area with bunnies to grind on for levels. The moment you exit the starting (burnt out) town you will get throttled, have your last scrap of meat taken, and be left in a ditch to die. The remarkable thing is you get stronger for it. Kenshi is a game where you get invested in your characters. They are generic nobodies. They are villagers. They are slaves. You can get enslaved. Gather enough of these idiots and you can start a town. Bandits will raid your town. Raptors will eat your crops. Slavers will take everyone that's left, and you're back in chains again, but a little stronger than you were before. Of my troupe, I formed a core "adventuring party." Its size went from the initial 5 I farmed copper ore with (enough to buy basic gear and food to last another day) to 18, with the rest being sent on standby to hide inside a town owned by a xenophobic kingdom (they all are) that hated me because my skin wasn't grey and bumpy. I picked up a free recruit - lucky! - in a fishing village, and sent him halfway across the world on foot back to my safe house where people research, but mostly stand around a treasure chest filled with meat waiting for hunger to strike again. On his way, a pack of cannibals started chasing him. Cannibals are naked. They're awfully fast. I ditched his sword and armor - he couldn't win a fight anyway. That made him faster, and also naked. The cannibals caught up, but couldn't get far enough ahead to swing their swords, so they ran in a pack across national borders. I stopped adventuring with my core group for a solid hour to watch this race against being eaten. He made it, wounded. He ran into the capital of Women Suck, Rock on Brah. They hated him, but hated cannibals more. He was starving..

My squad has 6 people from several races. We managed to survive for several weeks - we have some decent beginner weapons - some are bought, some are stolen, some are looted. We are allied with a Ninja faction, which sold us some decent equipment for half the price. Food is not a problem at the moment. We hunted some Bone Dogs and dried their meat at a campfire. The price were our broken bones, injured legs, several blackouts, bleedings, cutted chests and close-to-death situations. But that's okay - because each fight makes us stronger, each blackout increases our dexterity and as long as one of us is standing after a fight, he can medic and rescue the others. Last week we started building a base. Collecting and processing all the resources took a long time, leaving aside all the struggle with bandid groups which are straying the lands and making trouble all the times. As soon as we finished building our first shed, a huge group of Dust bandits showed up: "Pay us 1.000 cats a day, or this place is ours". Having not enough money, some minutes later all of us were beaten up, wounded and bleeding. We barely managed to survive. Slave traders came along in this bad moment and put the unconcious of us in chains. But then luck was on our side. Some hungry bandids showed up in this moment, started making trouble and were also beaten up - most of them also ending up in chains. In this short moment the rest of us were able to sneak in, grabbed the chained squad members and carried them into safety. We are all sleeping in the Ninjas tower now, save for only some hours, recovering and healing our wounds. Half of us have the malus of an escaped Ex-Slave. When they wake up, they will need new haircuts, new clothes and have to stay hidden for the next days - making sure that nobody recognises them as being escaped slaves - otherwise we will be in real trouble once again. -- This is how a week in Kenshi can look like. This game is amazing, deep, broad, diverse and unique. 10/10

I have observed this game from a distance for years. I finally decided to purchase it on GOG and I have not been able to escape it's grasp. I have only one playthrough. I chose to be wanted by the two biggest factions but in turn I discovered an ancient and powerful blade on some distant battlefield. I have had my rear end handed to me counless times. My companions and I have lost numerous limbs. But we still exist, and even prosper. I've settled and have begun to growing hemp and wheat for profit and sustinence . We've traded for replacement limbs, and suits of armor to protect what's left of our frail bodies. We've starved, and have been wounded, and have been to the brink of total destruction, yet we prevail. This game will not let me stop playing. In just a few short days I have logged over 50 hours. The world is enormous and it's not even complete, the challenges endless, the story what you make of it. Yes, it still feels early and buggy, but truly worth it. The graphics look dated, but the depth and breadth is immense. As I type this, I wonder how I will manage to figure out how to supply power to my small settlement. I managed to begin farming by raiding my slaving neighbors for supplies. Ended up losing a person in the process and spent a few hours trying to figure out how to rescue them from their enslavement. I genuinely, one-hundred percent, stand behind this game. It has it's quirks. You have to import saves after every major update or it reportedly breaks stuff. The dev seems to be a small team or maybe even just one person. But it's is a huge time sink and a heck of a way to unwind after a day at work. I just can't put it out of my head. It's deep. Crazy deep. And it's definitely worth spending the time on, even in its current state. It's rough at the start, but once to start encroaching on being a badass, the world opens itself up and more and more possibilities begin to present themselves. Buy it, play it, and lose yourself. I fully expect to be lost in the wastes for months to come. Maybe even more.

I bought this game early Alpha on steam and from then up until now i have not once regretted that decision, I have played countless hours of the game and every time i pick it up to play/start a new game i find myself locked into the world of Kenshi for countless hours without realising just how much i need to get away from my PC. Since Beta the amount of content added has been amazing, the game has progressively gotten better without breaking away from what makes the game gorgeous. The game is immense in terms of how you can play it and what you can do within it, the quality of the content is in no way lacking and neither is the replayability because of it. Starting as a lone wanderer and deciding to build a town or village from which to build your own trade empire has such a wonderful feel to it as you slowly watch as your carefully maintained entourage survive and grow stronger. The only reason i cannot give this game 5 stars is because the game is of course in early access and thus prone to bugs, of which I have experienced none, and constant change. I find it exciting as more get's added, starting fresh never feels boring as every new game can be played wildly differently and watching my main character grow stronger, and with the combat your successfull battles actually feel thoroughly fulfilling, never seems to grow tiresome. I highly reccomend this game, it is not like most top down Sim/Rpg ish game's are and it's definitely tough to get a handle on at first but twice as rewarding once you start to understand the hidden beauty behind this game. Even down to the music and plentiful subtleties that can be found within the game, i found the experience and continued experience of playing this game to be unchangingly pleasant.