Feudal Japan meets Mad Max featuring special guests the East India Trading Company, robots and the inquisition, all set in the sand blasted ruins of a once technologically advanced world. Encounter humans, hivers (insectoid mutants) and shek (genetically modified fighters who seek death in battle) along with the robots known as skeletons, who definitely didn’t have anything to do with the current dark age.

Good: Kenshi is an extremely flexible sandbox, allowing you to play as a samurai, trader, bandit, bounty hunter, archaeologist-salvager, wandering ninja, slaver, slave, skin-stealing robot, bug-man drug-lord, xenophobic zealot and more. You can forge alliances, make bitter enemies, build anything from a farmstead to a mighty city or simply wander the ruins of a fallen world, striking and stealing as the mood take you. There is a huge map for you to explore but if you decide to stay put for a while, you can set “jobs” for each character, allowing you to automate crafting, farming, healing and training, or simply set them to follow and bodyguard another character.

Most races are available to play and you can end up friendly to most factions through healing their wounded, rescuing members from slavery (or cannibal lunchtime) bringing in enemies for their bounty or potentially paying a large amount of cats (the currency of the setting.) Each faction also has it’s own list of dos and don’ts. For example, anyone exploring the territory of the Holy Nation better be a) Human b) male and c) carrying a copy of the Holy Flame and woe betide you if you are a robot or have a robotic limb, since you’ll be killed on sight.

Speaking of robotic limbs, Kenshi cuts a strange line between the advanced and the primitive, with advanced machinery such as androids (called skeletons for their looks) and robotic replacement limbs alongside katanas, clubs, crossbows and straw hats. Every piece of gear you equip has it’s ups and downs, with heavy armour offering much better protection but leaving you slow and clumsy compared to light armour that leaves you flexible. In addition, some armour offers protection against the hazards of the world – lethal acid rain, toxic gas or even lethal blasts of concentrated sunlight from the relics of orbital weaponry can be mitigated by the right equipment.

Mixed: One of the features of Kenshi is that you are not “the chosen one” and your character operates under the same rules as any other NPC – you don’t deal extra damage, you don’t have more hit-points and most people will be standoffish if they don’t attack you on sight. It’s very easy to bleed to death in the desert, be enslaved, have your limbs ripped off in a savage fight or even get eaten alive. By the same token, almost anything that can be done to you can be done to NPCs, and as you survive, you’ll get stronger and faster until YOU are the nastiest thing in the wastelands. Note that since your first character isn’t special, you don’t “lose” if they die – you can control any character you recruit.

The other thing is the lack of direction. There’s no overarching quest or goal beyond what you set for yourself and survival, and if you aren’t comfortable without a set objective, this could be a big drawback. That said, emergent gameplay can do a lot in terms of finding a goal – say you start as an Empire Peasant in the Great Desert, only to fall foul of Manhunters, be bludgeoned unconscious and wake up in chains as a slave. Eventually you pick the locks on the cages, escape freeing a bunch of slaves with you, and decide you want to wipe out the slavers in revenge – boom, you now have an objective! .

Bad: Kenshi can be extremely overwhelming when you first try it. There are so many factions, so many areas and natural hazards that you’ll need to keep an eye out for and learn how to appease or evade that you’re bound to fall foul of at least one. Information about the setting is gained through the dialogue between characters and bitter, bitter experience, and it can feel very unfair to find out that Samurai are quite happy to shake you down for cash, or use you as a training dummy if you refuse to (or can’t) pay up.

Stability is also a potential problem. Because of the large number of calculations involved in combat and movement, high towns with frequent raids can sometimes cause slowdown or crashes, so make sure you save frequently. You may also want to download a mod that reduces the number of particles on the screen at any given time. This can become even more of an issue if you use the faster speeds in the game settings.

Opinion: Kenshi is a strange one, and how much you get out of it’s really going to depend on your mindset. On one hand, it’s an open-ended sandbox with tons to explore, weird creatures to hunt (or be hunted by) and the potential to play as almost anything and survive if you’re careful… on the other, it’s an extremely unforgiving setting with no “win” condition, and no protection against overwhelmingly one-sided fights if you misstep. I’ve had a lot of enjoyment out of Kenshi and would consequently recommend it, but if you prefer set objectives (or are easily frustrated by bugs) this isn’t the game for you.