Kenshi just keeps on getting better, and yet the gritty sandbox survival simulator is very far from being done. The biggest update to come out recently was the 0.50 update which added sound, alongside a whole host of other additions and tweaks.

Now, the game is getting quite another big milestone – women are now in the game, although they’re currently not available to recruit in the demo build, but they’re still there. One thing that would be awesome to see would be the ability to marry people in the game, whether you’re straight or not.

Just to spice things up a bit, the guys at Lo-fi games also added in a cannibal faction. For now, they simply capture your people if left unattended/unarmed, after which they drag their victims back to be caged up. A future update is promised that will let cannibals eat your party members limb by limb, until they either die or you rescue them.

You can find the full list of updates, changes, and bug fixes below:

0.58.0    “Cannibal!”

• Cannibal faction.  They capture people and take them back to their camps and put them in cages.  In future versions they’ll eat your guys one limb at a time until you can rescue them.
• All NPC squads and patrols are persistent throughout the game world.  They don’t spawn/unload, they wander seamlessly.  If a town or faction suffers heavy losses, then you will notice there are less of them around.
• You can now pick locks on doors and cages.  New “thievery” skill.  No stealth system yet though.
• Beards!
• Your characters have proper portrait icons on the GUI
• More sound effects and tweaks
• New weapon type- Cleaver
• Weapon types now have different bleeding effect damage multipliers
• Some passing patrols will heal wounded strangers (ie you)
• World map color-codes towns and outposts so you know which are hostile
• Female characters are now in the game (can’t recruit females in demo version though)

BUGFIXES

• Resource containers now have infinite capacity.  This stops AI production from blocking up and confusing both players and AI, and I think is a nice easy alternative to DF style leaving excess resource items all over the floor.
• Fixed some bugs with Town markers, you’re less likely to create multiple towns by accident, or see a town from a past game
• The game now keeps rendering when the window doesn’t have focus.  This will help those with multi-monitor setups
• The science skill was increasing 10x faster than it should, that is now fixed.
• Loading/saving fixed for when carrying characters / being carried
• Fixed the right-click menu on character portraits not working
• Fixed the game not being saved if you don’t enter a save name
• Hopefully fixed the key-binding bug
• Fixed ceiling fans appearing on the floor, but it will only fix new games or towns you haven’t visited yet
• Fixed faction relations not loading/saving properly.

FEATURES DISABLED UNTIL A FUTURE RELEASE

• Assaults! Bandits and other factions will approach your base and talk, giving you a chance to grovel, pay, join or anger them.  This way you can avoid impossible fights at the early stages.  Diplomacy in Kenshi is all through face-to-face dialogue with NPCs.
• Deferred shading system.  Night time will be darker, towns will be lit up at night and you’ll need torches to travel in the dark.

We did a preview for Kenshi when the 0.50 update launched and despite the game being an early build, it’s still quite awesome – so please give it a read.

A demo for Kenshi is available on Lo-fi’s website, while you can also buy early access through Steam, or through their website as well. In the meantime, I’m going to go start recruiting a bunch of women with beards to hide in my hilltop base.