I always come away from games like Kenshi with the sense that they're kind of 'failed MMOs.' Not at all in the sense that they were MMOs or were ever going to be MMOs but more in the sense that a gas giant or a brown dwarf is a 'failed star.' They're attempts to create the same kind of virtual worlds that are designed for thousands of interacting players, with interlocking systems and sprawling footprints, but with no hope or desire to fund servers or attract the player base required for such a thing to actually become a functioning space, they fill it with AIs that sort of act the way people playing MMOs might - like selfish, marauding assholes. The reason they feel like sandboxes despite having tons of RPG elements is because the aim of an MMO is not usually any 'end' goal, but in becoming part of a community, and in a 'failed MMO' you have to kind of pretend that you're joining one made up of NPCs. It's a bit like how you CAN play D&D or any tabletop game by yourself, but it ends up feeling a bit lonely and hollow, because the whole structure of the games are designed to encourage interplay between multiple people, and that's tough to appreciate when you're the only mind at work.
Glad you brought up MMO design. An early draft of this review approached Kenshi as a sort of single-player MMO-like because it creates a similar sense of sprawl with its various world events broadly disconnected from one another. And indeed, encountering a squad of Sand Ninjas out in the wild feels eerily like getting ganked by a squad of Level 99 no-lifes in any PvP MMO. More importantly, though, Kenshi does a great job at replicating the sense of adventure and discovery you get from a great MMO world. It also vastly truncates the grind you'd expect from an MMO with single-player content.
The solo D&D analogy is a good one. I wouldn't want to play a D&D campaign on my own for precisely the reasons you suggest, but there are certainly some aspects of the TTRPG experience that lend themselves to solo play and which might even be improved by the singular focus of exactly one mind. Early this year, I ran through a solo module for Mothership RPG called Thousand Empty Light that really impressed me. Like Kenshi, it leans into the foreknowledge that the story is strictly in the player's hands, and it presents as a mechanical sandbox in much the same way. This all seems ripe for further experimentation.
Really enjoyed this review from start to finish and I'm glad mine encouraged you to also cover this very atypical video game.
It's funny, a bit removed now from my own last visit to Kenshi and I only remember liking it, even if my review was not a positive one and I was convinced at the time I probably wouldn't touch it again.
Everyone should play it once and a few people might just find a new favourite game.
A comment on your section about Triple-A design now: I wholeheartedly agree that the aversion to having players face any kind of obstacle is a massive issue and I would also add that modern Triple-A games feel designed around a market niche, not a gameplay loop or narrative. I don't see a game like Star Wars Outlaws and think "This was designed to tell a Star Wars story." Or "The game was built around this gameplay gimmick or loop." I just see "They realised there wasn't an open-world offering for Star Wars geeks."
Thanks so much! Kenshi really is one of those games that you just have to experience for yourself, and that's why it's such a breath of fresh air. I never got around to SWO for exactly the reason you describe — I'm not that big a fan of Star Wars, and marketing a game as an open-world adaptation just doesn't hit as a selling point like it once did. Then again, open worlds used to prominently factor into core gameplay even in the AAA sphere (Just Cause, The Witcher, TES...).
It seems like the indies are ready to fill in the gaping void left behind, though! Kenshi is just one example. Tainted Grail, Dread Delusion, etc. make me hopeful for another wave of games that construct an experience around the open world instead of just having one for its own sake.
Games like Kenshi are like a brutal workout or a long hike - you're miserable and in terrible agony during and right after, but after your body and soul heal you feel great and go 'yeah, I really enjoyed that.'
I always come away from games like Kenshi with the sense that they're kind of 'failed MMOs.' Not at all in the sense that they were MMOs or were ever going to be MMOs but more in the sense that a gas giant or a brown dwarf is a 'failed star.' They're attempts to create the same kind of virtual worlds that are designed for thousands of interacting players, with interlocking systems and sprawling footprints, but with no hope or desire to fund servers or attract the player base required for such a thing to actually become a functioning space, they fill it with AIs that sort of act the way people playing MMOs might - like selfish, marauding assholes. The reason they feel like sandboxes despite having tons of RPG elements is because the aim of an MMO is not usually any 'end' goal, but in becoming part of a community, and in a 'failed MMO' you have to kind of pretend that you're joining one made up of NPCs. It's a bit like how you CAN play D&D or any tabletop game by yourself, but it ends up feeling a bit lonely and hollow, because the whole structure of the games are designed to encourage interplay between multiple people, and that's tough to appreciate when you're the only mind at work.
Glad you brought up MMO design. An early draft of this review approached Kenshi as a sort of single-player MMO-like because it creates a similar sense of sprawl with its various world events broadly disconnected from one another. And indeed, encountering a squad of Sand Ninjas out in the wild feels eerily like getting ganked by a squad of Level 99 no-lifes in any PvP MMO. More importantly, though, Kenshi does a great job at replicating the sense of adventure and discovery you get from a great MMO world. It also vastly truncates the grind you'd expect from an MMO with single-player content.
The solo D&D analogy is a good one. I wouldn't want to play a D&D campaign on my own for precisely the reasons you suggest, but there are certainly some aspects of the TTRPG experience that lend themselves to solo play and which might even be improved by the singular focus of exactly one mind. Early this year, I ran through a solo module for Mothership RPG called Thousand Empty Light that really impressed me. Like Kenshi, it leans into the foreknowledge that the story is strictly in the player's hands, and it presents as a mechanical sandbox in much the same way. This all seems ripe for further experimentation.
Really enjoyed this review from start to finish and I'm glad mine encouraged you to also cover this very atypical video game.
It's funny, a bit removed now from my own last visit to Kenshi and I only remember liking it, even if my review was not a positive one and I was convinced at the time I probably wouldn't touch it again.
Everyone should play it once and a few people might just find a new favourite game.
A comment on your section about Triple-A design now: I wholeheartedly agree that the aversion to having players face any kind of obstacle is a massive issue and I would also add that modern Triple-A games feel designed around a market niche, not a gameplay loop or narrative. I don't see a game like Star Wars Outlaws and think "This was designed to tell a Star Wars story." Or "The game was built around this gameplay gimmick or loop." I just see "They realised there wasn't an open-world offering for Star Wars geeks."
Thanks so much! Kenshi really is one of those games that you just have to experience for yourself, and that's why it's such a breath of fresh air. I never got around to SWO for exactly the reason you describe — I'm not that big a fan of Star Wars, and marketing a game as an open-world adaptation just doesn't hit as a selling point like it once did. Then again, open worlds used to prominently factor into core gameplay even in the AAA sphere (Just Cause, The Witcher, TES...).
It seems like the indies are ready to fill in the gaping void left behind, though! Kenshi is just one example. Tainted Grail, Dread Delusion, etc. make me hopeful for another wave of games that construct an experience around the open world instead of just having one for its own sake.
I've not played it myself either. I was a big Star Wars fan until the Disney era and unfortunately, it's all I can associate the IP with now.
I just hope the indies get less derivative in future, we're getting there, slowly.
Games like Kenshi are like a brutal workout or a long hike - you're miserable and in terrible agony during and right after, but after your body and soul heal you feel great and go 'yeah, I really enjoyed that.'