Welcome to Kenshi—a brutal, lawless sandbox RPG where survival is earned, not given. If you’re new to the world and want a starting point that offers balance, flexibility, and early access to key game mechanics, the Wanderer start is your best bet. This guide will walk you through how to take your fragile, underpowered loner and turn them into a self-sufficient, world-shaping powerhouse. Let’s jump in.
Starting Out: Choosing the Right Character
For your first game, pick the Wanderer start and play as a male Greenlander. Why? Greenlanders get bonuses to farming and healing and are generally treated more favorably in the world—especially by factions like the Holy Nation. While you can customize your race and appearance, this option gives you an easier time navigating the early political and survival hurdles.
Kenshi doesn’t have traditional levels. Instead, every skill and attribute improves through direct use. Want better toughness? Get beat up. Want better swordplay? Fight more. It’s brutal, yes, but fair—and that’s part of the magic.
The Ezequiel Regimen: Early Game Power-Up Plan
You’ll begin in The Hub, a quiet and abandoned town that’s perfect for low-risk training. There’s a twitchy bar thuginside—start a fight by insulting him. The guards will jump in on your side, thinking you’re the victim. Let them take the heat, then loot the bodies. Sell what you don’t want and use the cash to buy food, medical supplies, and a crossbow (plus ammo) from the barkeep.
Next, train strength and athletics by loading your inventory with heavy items and running around. Yes, it’s that simple. Just run. Weight training improves strength; distance improves athletics.
Once you’re stronger, sneak into the ninja tower nearby. They don’t take kindly to vagrants using their training gear, so sneak in. When the eye icon is blue, you’re hidden. Use their dummies to train stealth, lock-picking, assassination, and melee. Stop if anyone walks by.
Combat, Survival, and Exploration
When your basic stats are up, venture into the wild. You’ll encounter marauder bands, and they will try to kill you. If your athletics is high, you can outrun most of them. This is where your crossbow comes in. Use it to kite enemies, shoot while running, then loot their corpses and flee. For bonus strength training, pick up an unconscious body and run—yes, it counts.
Exploration is your best money-making method. The world is massive, filled with ruins, dungeons, and hostile territories. While luring bandits into towns for guards to kill and then looting the bodies is effective, it’s repetitive and slow. Instead, head for the Ashlands or similarly dangerous zones. High risk means high reward.
But there’s more to exploring than just loot. Kenshi has deep lore spread throughout its unique characters and cities. Some NPCs will lie to you, others offer half-truths based on your race. If you’re lucky, you’ll even encounter the infamous warrior Beep—yes, he’s real.
Recruiting and Growing Your Party
Party members can be recruited in bars. Some require a fee, and the more skilled they are, the higher the cost. While their skills are hidden, you can inspect their attributes for clues. You can also buy slaves, though most will run once you leave town. A few may stay and join you as free companions.
For temporary help, mercenaries can be hired. They won’t follow orders, but they will attack anyone who attacks you. Just don’t expect loyalty or tactics—they’re purely muscle.
Understanding Combat and Factions
Kenshi’s combat system is surprisingly nuanced. Attacks only land if your weapon physically touches the enemy. This means with good micro-positioning, you can dodge hits or angle your attacks to hit multiple enemies at once.
Factions shape the world. The two biggest are:
- The Holy Nation: Religious zealots who only trust male Greenlanders.
- The United Cities: Slavers and bureaucrats who value order and wealth.
You can join factions and earn their protection. But be warned—joining one makes you an enemy of its rivals. Sometimes being with the right race can shield your companions too. The Holy Nation, for example, won’t harm non-Greenlanders if they’re with a Greenlander (who they assume is the master). Unless you’re a Skeleton. Then they just want you dead.
Base Building and Automating Life
Eventually, you’ll want a home. An ideal base location has:
- Iron for mining
- Fertile soil for farming
- Proximity to towns for trade
Base-building in Kenshi involves a job system. Assign characters to harvest, haul, build, and craft. They’ll eat and defend themselves automatically. When a major threat arrives, turn jobs off, manage the defense, then resume automation when safe.
Research unlocks advanced facilities. Early research costs books, but high-tier tech requires ancient science books and other rare items. You’ll need to raid ancient labs—dangerous but rewarding.
Nearby factions will mess with your base. In United Cities territory, you’ll pay taxes. The Holy Nation enforces gender roles and requires Prayer Day attendance. Hostile raiders will attack, but usually won’t steal or destroy anything. You can either build strong defenses or evacuate and wait out the threat.
Cheating, Mods, and Doing Whatever You Want
Kenshi is unforgiving—but that doesn’t mean you’re trapped. The game comes with a built-in editor where you can adjust stats, give yourself items, or create super-soldiers. There’s also a massive modding community. Whether you want to be noble or completely degenerate, there’s a mod for you.
Conclusion
Kenshi is what you make it. You can be a lone assassin, a wandering monk, a slaver, a warlord, a trader, or a skeleton empire builder. While it starts hard and unrelenting, with the right strategy and a bit of grit, you’ll come to love the freedom and chaos. So whether you’re dragging unconscious bandits through the desert, dodging Holy Nation patrols, or training up your tenth recruit, remember—there’s no wrong way to play Kenshi. Just your way.
Ready for more? Try Kenshi—but in 2D. Try not to go insane.
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