Recent reviews by Bumblebee

I generally don't care for city builders, but this game scratches an itch I didn't know I had.

♥♥♥♥ DRM

♥♥♥♥ DRM

You had a dream, which was not all a dream. The wallet was emptied, and the money did wander darkling into Freehold Games' pocket.

A game that deserves all its praise. Instant GOTY.

Kenshi is an interesting game that's very hard to describe. It's a blend of RPG and RTS that functions quite well. You can dwell in the broken world just by yourself, with a squad of faithful friends, or with an entire army (using a simple mod, you can control up to 256 characters). So, what all does this game offer? Plenty of options you can find in most other RPGs.

Be a thief, pawning off stolen goods to make profit, or you can travel the cities to make a living off honest trading with a bull to carry your load. Scavenge the ruins for artifacts with a faithful bonedog companion by your side. Establish outposts/villages/cities, serve a holy purpose, hunt down cannibals, become a leader of an army to sweep over the lands, battle giant creatures, or just chill in a tavern and listen to some of the stories others have to tell. Sounds good, doesn't it, but does it actually work?

• True sandbox experience – almost all that the enemy can do, you can do too (and if not, there are mods for that)
  
• Official mod support (with Steam Workshop) – modability can carry the game when the game can no longer carry itself
  
• Giant map – even though only about ¼ of the map is implemented so far, it is still quite large, and will become only larger and more diverse as time goes on
  
• Updates – disputable (read more in The Bad), but the game is basically being made by a single guy (except for sound, music, and art), so with that taken into account, the game is being updated quite frequently
  
• Soundtrack – the music is great, and I applaud the composer for pronouncing the atmosphere of the game with fitting music. Look up the sound engineer and music composer of this game, Kole Hicks. You'll find that the music system of Kenshi is a lot more complex than you might think.
  
• Gameplay – All I described in the overview, you can truly do.
  
• Replayability – Even when I explored the map, seen what there is to be seen, I still have the urge to play again and again, just to try a different style, a different race, or just to hang out in the amazing scenery once again

• Bugs – the game, to be honest, is a buggy mess. Some features that are implemented are not working correctly. For example, mercenaries that you should be able to hire to protect your outpost or to bodyguard you on your adventures don’t work (they just eat your money and act as if they had done the job), clipping textures (your characters can get stuck in inescapable places), shops can get bugged and be opened when they shouldn’t, which leads to guards attacking you, and more
  
• Pathfinding – While it’s amazing that you can just click anywhere in the map and your characters automatically go there, it’s not quite so useful when your characters get stuck, run around unnecessarily, etc. Your outpost workers will get stuck in buildings, behind staircases, and in other places.
  
• Learning curve – it will take you quite some time to get the hang of the game. This means you won’t be able to experience the game in enough time to be able to claim a refund if you don’t like the game anyway. So, buy at your own risk, knowing you won’t be able to get a refund
  
• Long development – the earliest Kenshi development video on the developer’s channel is 9 years ago, where in the description he also states that it’s a pre-alpha footage of something he had been working on for a few years by then. It just might be another decade before we see this game enter at least a beta stage. Still, at least we have an actually playable, feature-rich something, unlike another game that comes to mind – Overgrowth. What’s notable, though, is that even through such a long development the game is still being updated on regular basis, so the developer is definitely determined to see this game through.
  
• Dubious PR – I can’t attest to this myself, just thought I should mention it anyway. There has been, allegedly, some controversy. I don’t participate in the forums/steam discussion, so make your own picture of this. For further inquiry, read Extrasmooth's review of the game. If what he says is true, I fear that the developer might dig himself too deep into unfixable bugs. We shall see.
  
• Optimization – the game runs like garbage. You will have to contend yourself to playing the game at low/very low if you have older hardware like me. Still, the game will run like ♥♥♥♥ in some areas. Be wary. I don’t really care about the graphics as long as the gameplay is fine, but I know some people do care.

Phew, that's quite long so far. I don't think I'll be able to write the story of my first serious journey in the end due to character limit, but I might do some "greentext" version later on once I get it written down. Just so you know so far, yes it does indeed "work" and you can experience all I have said you can. With that, I do recommend this game even in its kinda broken state, as I most definitely got my money's worth out of it, and will continue to do so in the future. But, I still urge you to read through other reviews and to take "The Bad" things into account.