A role-playing game on Steam has been very successful in torturing its players. This is also intended, as the developer reveals in a new video.
What kind of video is this? In this approximately 17-minute video blog, Chris Hunt and Natalie Mikkelson discuss “Kenshi” and its sequel. Hunt is the founder of the development studio Lo-Fi Games and the creator of Kenshi, while Mikkelson is the lead writer and managing director of the game.
Kenshi is a hardcore survival RPG that releases you into a brutal world without guidance. In this world, you are not some chosen one with special abilities, but just a regular guy – someone who can really be in trouble.
You can watch a trailer for the game here:
Good stories thrive on suffering
What does it mean to say that players should be tortured? “Too many games allow their players to succeed,” says Hunt in the video. “You think to yourself, ‘Oh, it’s just a power fantasy,’ and you just run around, mowing down enemies and constantly succeeding. And that’s it – that’s the whole game. And that is incredibly boring to me,” he continues.
You don’t write a story in which a character wakes up in the morning, has a goal, and everything goes smoothly, says Hunt. To have a good story, you have to face problems. Moreover, you shouldn’t give up right away when you confront these problems.
You can also watch the developers’ video here:
The job of a storyteller (in this case, a game developer) is to “torture” the player, who is also the protagonist. And Kenshi does this abundantly:
- Your character can be enslaved by other characters or lose body parts like arms and legs in Kenshi. However, none of this necessarily means the death of your character.
This harshness is very well received by players: Kenshi has over 90,000 positive reviews on Steam.
Mikkelson believes that Kenshi appeals to a very specific type of player: “I think there is a certain kind of person who finds humor in being punished – someone who takes a certain pleasure in this level of difficulty and in being punished.”
Will the developer’s next game be just as harsh? Yes, there is supposed to be a Kenshi 2, and it will follow in the same vein, but currently there is little information about the project. It is known that the sequel will take place 1,000 years before the first game. However, the developers have stated that they will only show scenes from the game when it is in a presentable state.
If this sounds exciting to you, you can get Kenshi on Steam for only €8.09 at the moment. This offer is valid until May 19th; after that, you will pay the regular price of €26.99.
The development of Kenshi was a real long-term project, but it paid off. Today, many people enjoy recounting how they were beaten up by the vast and unforgiving game world. You can read more about it in this article on MeinMMO: The game world in one of the best RPGs on Steam is 10 times larger than that of GTA 5 and took its creator 12 years
