Speaking of cultural elements in the game, it seems that as long as there is a macro concept, you can think of many things. For example, when you mention wasteland, you are likely to think of representative works such as "Fallout" and "Borderless Land", and when you mention Japan, you are likely to think of samurai, kendo, cherry blossoms, etc., which is what we often call "cultural output". Nowadays, we combine cyberpunk, dystopia and Bushido to get a refreshing action game like "Samurai: Zero". If wasteland, punk and Bushido are combined, you think you can get a cool end-of-day steampunk heavy metal chopping game, but in fact, what you get is an independent game "Kenshi" that looks so bad and looks so bad.
December 6, 2018, this game ended its long EA stage and finally ushered in its official release. It did not cause any sensation at first, but it ushered in its spring two months after its release, ranking among the top ten in Steam sales, and received "specially positive reviews". The first time I came into contact with this game was from my friend , . My friend didn’t know which anchor was watching live broadcasts, and this game attracted him. It was not that this game looked so fun, but that he couldn’t see what the game was or how it was played after watching it for a long time. Although everyone who has played this game thinks it is great, they still can't think of a suitable adjective when recommending others.
You are not "Qiu Shengwang"
"Kenshi" is the English way of writing "Swordsman" in Japanese. The game combines sandbox, survival, role-playing (RPG) and real-time strategy (RTS) systems. It is difficult for people to define what type of game this is. If you have to say, the proportion of survival content in the early stage is relatively large, while in the later stage, the proportion of RPG and RTS is relatively large. As mentioned above, this is a game work that combines wasteland, punk and Bushido. After combining these elements that seem to have no connection, it forms the strange but unconventional art style in Kenshi. You can see soldiers wearing Warring States armor wearing high-tech prosthetic armbands in the desert, and there are also ronin wearing long gowns and wooden clogs holding dinosaurs with a sword in the ruins (Inner OS: Isn't this "Monster Hunter"?), and players named this strange style "Sword Punk".
The overall art style is familiar, but when it is put together, it becomes unfamiliar
Open the Steam store page of "Kenshi", and what you see is a huge line of words: "You are not the chosen one." Players who have played the "Fallout" series should know that the protagonist of the second generation of the series is called "Chosen one" by his tribesmen, so they also have the nickname "Qiu Shengwang". As the hope of the entire race, he stepped into the wasteland alone to find the Eden Maker. His combat power is also very strong (because no one before him failed the test), and he can rank in the top three in the entire Fallout series.
In "Kenshi", the author of the game emphasizes this concept throughout the article. Players are just a very small existence in this world. Just like " Horse Riding and Killing ", even if the player does nothing, all kinds of big and small things will happen in this world. Players no longer have the protagonist aura in the previous games. This time the role played by the player is like a passerby NPC in "GTA", and the world does not revolve around you.
game does not have an absolute gameplay. According to the developer, players have absolute freedom in the world of "Kenshi". There is no main line, no plot, and no tutorial in the game. Players can do anything you can think of. To borrow one of the official introductions of the game console: choose to become a businessman, thief, rebel, warlord, adventurer, farmer, slave or cannibal tooth sacrifice. Players can play many roles in this world, and as for how to play, the decision lies with the players.
"A bunch of money at the beginning, and the materials are all dependent on stealing." It seems that the developer has deliberately weakened the protagonist's ability. He basically did nothing in the early stage, and many tasks cannot be completed by himself, so you need helpers, many helpers, and how to operate these helpers requires the operation method of RTS, but the game UI, which is several times more complicated than RTS, is really "persuading to withdraw and pull up".
The complex and ugly UI occupies one-third of the picture
is so calm
Someone may say that this game is bad, the gameplay is boring, and the system is so hard-core. What's so fun about it? As mentioned above, it is no exaggeration to call the difference in the game the picture was ten years ago, and even the 2004 "Half-Life 2" is much better than him.
But in fact, this game has been in development since 2006, and has been produced for 13 years so far this year and has been officially released this year. The developer of the game is Chris Hunter. He once said that the development of the game was not smooth. He loved games since he was a child and witnessed the innovation of electronic games over the years. In his opinion, although the games he played when he was a child were sketchy, the pictures were backward, and the technical strength was insufficient, it provided players with a lot of space for activity, and most of the game content needed to be discovered by players themselves. Turning around and looking at the current games, I wish I could teach you how to play games step by step, and most of the time I could only follow the process, which made Hunter feel the "sense of restraint", so Hunter decided to develop a game work he wanted.
"Half-Life 2" is still out of date now
Hunter has been doing it alone for six years. During this period, he almost spent all his savings, so he found a security job to subsidize the game development. After all, it is still a good meal. In 2013, Hunter joined Steam's "Light of Favor" program at that time and began the "Eraly Access" stage. With the help of Steam, the game was exposed to the players' vision, contributing a wave of sales for a while, and the game began to gain stable revenue.
. Taking this opportunity, Hunter also felt that he was too willing to be alone but not enough, so he set up Lo-Fi studio to continue to provide updated content for the game. There were 12 games that entered the EA stage at that time, 9 of which had been officially released long ago, and two were cancelled, only "Kenshi" was still being tested slowly.
"Armed Raid 3" is one of the 12 games
games have not been released for the official version, but are constantly being updated slowly. It is another 6 years later. If it is put in the previous games, if the official version has not been released for such a long time, it will definitely be sprayed out. Since Henry's interaction with the player community has never stopped in the past six years, and has a stable update frequency, for the players of "Kenshi", there is actually no difference between the more official version. "You have to be prepared to release a game on Early Access because people have a very picky taste and every bug will make them very impatient." Hunter once complained about his experience during this period. Finally, the game officially launched the 1.0 official version at the end of 2018, and added Simplified Chinese some time ago. This game finally ushered in its most glorious moment.
The game praise rate is 93%
Conclusion
Nowadays, the pictures of electronic games are always "movie-level picture quality" and "audio-visual feast", and the capacity is also increasing by dozens or hundreds. Although the pictures have improved, the content of the game has been discounted. There are not many games that can have both picture and playability. If you think about it carefully, "Kenshi" is a game developed more than ten years ago. The picture is understandable, but if the so-called game is just good-looking but not fun, then nothing can be used.
Regarding the relationship between gameplay and picture, Hunter, the author of Kenshi, once said: "Not every successful game has exquisite pictures. The famous "Undertale" looks like a game from the 1980s, but has received widespread praise. Obviously, if players use the visual performance of 3A works as a benchmark to choose a game, they will definitely miss a lot of unforgettable experiences." It is worth mentioning that Hunter and his team Lo-Fi are planning the development of "Kenshi2", looking forward to this new "four-no-like" work created with new era technology.
