Hey Kenshi crew, how you doin’? First up - in case you missed it, we recently posted a blog with a little Kenshi 2 news and a brand new Kenshi Free Camera mode. Check it out if you’ve not had the chance. So why are we here again so soon? Well, we’ve a pretty big milestone to celebrate:



We’re overjoyed to announce that we’ve sold 2.3 million copies of Kenshi. Not only that - more of you folks bought yourself a copy of Kenshi in 2023 than in any other year. Wild.


We celebrated with tees for the crew

So here’s a massive thanks to everyone who’s helped us on this journey. You might not be aware, but we’re an entirely independent company and we don’t have the deep pockets of investors or publishers to help us spread the word at all. We’re therefore especially thankful for all the recommendations and reviews from fans, the work from content creators and all the publications kind enough to cover us. We couldn’t have done it without you.

• PC Gamer - One of the most strange and cruel survival sandboxes I've played has sold 2.3 million copies
  
• GamesIndustry.biz - Lo-Fi Games' Kenshi sells 2.3m units

To celebrate our 2 million milestone we’re launching these animated avatars for you to get your mitts on with any Steam points you might have lying about.

To grab your Steam avatars, head to the Steam Points Shop and click on 'Avatars' on the left-hand side menu under “Profile”. At the top of the shop you should see your ‘Steam Points Balance’ and a search bar next to it, use this to search ‘Kenshi’ and the avatars should appear.

Alternatively, you can head to your profile, click ‘Edit Profile’ and on the left-hand side, you should see ‘Steam Points Shop’. Once you click this, you’ll be brought to the store page, and you can use the search bar to find the avatars.




You’ve still got until the 21st April to submit your screenshots using our new Free Camera Mode in our #KenshiFreeCam Contest. Head on over to our previous blog to check out the rules of entry.


It’s been a while since we put together a Community Spotlight but don’t worry, we hadn’t forgotten about you lot. We’ve still been highlighting your work over on our social media, gathering all your screenshots, artwork and videos and mods ready for this update. FYI - you can expect future Community Spotlight posts to come out at a rate of around once every three months, give or take.


With thanks to all the contributors included in this video:


Mods

• Native Stylise from Bob
• The Great Factories from Jorahm
• Hireable Merchants! from Don Fuego
• Simple Hillshade Map from FajrAl

Screenshots

• "TIME FOR CRAB!" from CrowX8
• "Relaxing" from Lohroc
• The fog looms over them from Ziutek Kraksa
• The East border of Shem from ArdynVolaris

Fan Art

• "sleep at work" from Ledsen-katt 
• "Doodles" from 5kinjo6
• "2000 yard view" from Missnöjd_KAtt
• "Narko help me" from Lambbda

Mods

• The Outbreak from MrGredy
• Canine Variation (Boneyard Wolves & Colors) from Mogwai
• GNOMES! - THE INVASION from Entoco
• Defiance Belts from Spherix

Screenshots

• This base looks too good not to visit... or rob from @sqkVzp0HOwrnIwU
• Where you place your base can work in your favour from TsukasaKun
• We love the structure of this base! from Gary_FX
• You should be wary of old men in a profession where men usually die young from De Grote J

Fan Art

• "Lost in the dunes, forever." from Gabriel E. Stokkan
• We think this fan art is brilliant! from (·ω<Bird Coconut
• "Hiver thought he was Ryan Gosling." from  Missnöjd_KAtt
• The most dangerous creatures, even when they are made out of clay from Bum_Nuggler

Mods

• Beam Things from Momayo
• Healing Toilet (Outhouse) from OusRP
• Hell Survivor Armor from AGO
• Replace Piped Weapons from ikahurula

Screenshots

• That’s a lotta crabs from Mr Bombastic
• Red sky at morning from N’sane
• Dangerous adventures await from Rock3Game
• What did they do to deserve that? From raisin_object
• The onset of night from maukuakki

Fan Art

• Kenshi minis from Colonel Sanders
• Is Beep the strongest warrior? from TTomRP
• This is how Swampers sort things out from Missnöjd_KAtt
• Would you ever try to befriend a Beak Thing? from Office Worker
• Gonzalo has used some great colours in this piece. from Gonzalo Castelli Art

And finally

And last but definitely not least, we’d like to thank all the content creators who helped us test an early version of the Free Camera Mode. Take a look at what they were able to achieve with these tools in our previous blog post.

If you want to see yourself in one of our Community Spotlights, be sure to share and tag us with your work on our social media channels and Discord server. Catch you next time.

https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

1.0.68
Added free camera mode for screenshots and videos. Toggle with ;

If you experience any issues after the update, please read this post on how to report crashes or bugs and make a post in the Lo-Fi Games forum, ensuring that you’re nice to our lovely moderators.

https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

It’s 1st April again. Fancy some Kenshi hashish? Wanna find the Hive Queen a date? Kenshi Team Racing anyone? 

This year we’re changing things up and giving you something real: how do you feel about a cheeky little Free Camera Mode Kenshi update? How about some Kenshi 2 news, a new screenshot and a Lo-Fi Q&A?

We got you fam. First up:




Well, we’re not saying just yet. 

I once read that it’s bad practice from a marketing perspective to say “it’s ready when it’s ready”, but honestly, that kinda sums it up. Anything else until we’ve a release window for you is just sugar-coating, and we’d rather not do that. Besides, when have we behaved how devs are supposed to do?

We reckons that “it’s ready when it’s ready” is the best approach. So bear with us because the wait will be worth it. 


It's been a long while since we updated you on Kenshi 2. We had a bit of a change of tack and switched focus to getting all our ducks in a row for the betterment of Kenshi 2’s development rather than constantly drip-feeding you content, bit-by-bit.

The reality is that every time we put something out on Kenshi 2 it requires a lot of back and forth, double checking, and long, cross-departmental discussions on whether to reveal it or not. 

We need to ensure we’re not spoiling too much, that the reveals fit in with our long term plan, and that the content looks as close to the end product as possible so people know we're giving this prequel the love that it deserves. This is hard when you’re working with a team of perfectionists consistently improving their work. It pulls us away from development and it can ultimately risk ruining our best reveals before they’re ready. 

Discovery will play a huge part of the Kenshi 2 experience, and while it’s a lot of fun for us to show off new stuff, it kills the joy of finding it in-game. We put a lotta love into our creations and we ain't gonna ruin it for clicks. So we’re gonna keep schtum on the majority of Kenshi 2’s content until we have a lot more mega-polished stuff to show you.

Having said all that, we’ll still be sharing a few teases and updates as we go…




Since your last major Kenshi 2 update we’ve hired a Producer. We’ve hired Korean, Polish, Turkish and Italian translators. We’ve hired a Community Manager, and very recently we hired an Executive Assistant (which means Chris and Nat have much more time to work on the game). 

We have come a long way: 33 people are currently working on Kenshi 2 at a consistent, solid pace. We’re making some massive leaps into territory previously unknown to us and building a whole load of new systems that take time to perfect.

While we’ve grown the company, we’ve tried to only hire in areas where we feel it will benefit the thing that matters most: making the best game we possibly can. It’s also rather important that we stay afloat; it’s a tough old world out there right now, and overhiring risks being a short term solution that creates difficult and not-insignificant long term problems. We’re trying to keep it sensible. 

To recap: we’ve already shown you river raptors, sexy customisable gates, environment shots with lovely new building models, the modder-friendly district divider tool, our new approach to localisation, and an early version of just one of Kenshi 2’s Hiver models (every Hiver sub-race will have its own model). Oh and let’s not forget the hit video Kenshi 2: Furniture Alignment Mode (woo).

As some of you already know, we’ve made some major changes to our still-evolving FCS dev tool, some of which we’ve released to Kenshi 1 players to use, though many upcoming functions will only work with features exclusive to Kenshi 2.




We’ve already revealed that Kenshi 2 is being made in Unreal Engine, but what we haven’t told you is that we’re actually making it in the all-singing, all-dancing video game makey machine that is UE5. 

We shifted to UE5 just over a year ago, which…to put it mildly…was a big job in itself, but you’re probably best hearing that from some of the others…





CT: I’m Craig, I lead the programming team here at Lo-Fi.

NM: I’m Nat. I wear multiple hats running business direction and leading the narrative design and writing.

MR: I'm Mohamad, lead artist for Kenshi2 planning and supervising asset creation and assisting Chris with art direction.


CT: In short, a lot! There’s been significant efforts in our department to help make production easier for everyone else as well as improving/reworking existing systems and of course the big one, [REDACTED].

Without diving into the nitty gritty, the switch from Ogre to Unreal has forced us to revisit most of the systems from the game and configure them for a whole new GUI and asset pipeline. We’ve taken this as an opportunity to improve on what we already have, make it easier to configure, fix some really fundamental issues and add entirely new features that just weren’t possible in the first game.

To give one example, in Kenshi 1 we scattered the world with natural resources that the player could mine. We had a set number of resources that could be mined, you could reduce the amount of copper in a region to none or add some iron where there was no iron before but that’s really the limit, just playing with the numbers. Since revisiting this system not only have we made all our code more modular and easier to maintain but we’ve also made it possible for modders to create their own types of resources - so you can add things like gold mining, work that into some new crafting recipes, add new items like gold bars, make gangs of NPCs target you if you’re carrying large amounts across the map, tonnes of possibilities!

At the same time we’ve made this feature much easier to quickly iterate on and configure for artists. Instead of faffing with some numbers in FCS, reloading the game, checking the results and going back to FCS you can now fiddle with the numbers to your heart's content right in the editor and see changes in real time.

We don’t want to spoil everything for you, but hopefully this gives you an idea of the attitude we’ve been taking to development and what kind of changes you can expect to the existing systems from Kenshi 1.

NM: Narrative is becoming easier and easier as the years go by. The most difficult part was over with years ago - that’s the foundations; world building, fleshing, map, general plans for content, working structure. That part is super hard and horrible, makes me want to vomit. The last couple of years have been refining, refining, refining. Content’s been flowing easy now. This is the most fun part of narrative design where the game starts to make itself and everything comes together. We’ve also had a few new features added for us over the years which means our toolkit lends us all the more creativity to push boundaries with. 

MR: Kenshi is a massive game with a wide range of assets from buildings to characters, different biomes and environments, furniture... the list goes on. Unlike most sequels or prequels where assets can be reused, we had to start almost everything from scratch. This was firstly because lore dictated certain changes (Kenshi 2 is set 1000 years before Kenshi), and secondly due to our change of engine; UE uses different shading and rendering technology(PBR), which means textures work in an entirely different manner.

The past couple of years have been largely spent creating a huge amount of assets so Chris can focus on game design, which really is the most important part of the project. As is standard practice in the industry, we began with creating basic untextured blockouts and placing them around the world, filling it out and making it into something rich and believable. After several rounds of feedback and amends we went on to begin fully texturing the assets.

In general we have a good balance of progress across all asset categories and we now have something that’s actually playable. Some assets, such as furniture, are mostly made as blockout at this point as they’re needed for building layouts, whereas our buildings get fully modelled and textured as we progress from one region to another.


MR: A significant part of our decision to move to Unreal Engine 5 was for future-proofing; we didn’t want to be building Kenshi 2 in an engine that might see less support in the future. That being said, there are a few new features exclusive to UE5 that we can use to enhance visuals and performance. 

A lot of UE5’s features are actually still in their experimental phase right now, some of which we’ve already begun to use whereas others we’re keeping an eye on for later stages of development.

We’re using UE5’s World Partition system to help with the performance and scalability of Kenshi 2’s massive open world. We’re planning to use the much-hyped Nanite to enable us to have a higher polycount with improved performance where needed, Lumen which gives us dynamic illumination and realistic reflections, and UE5’s Machine Learning Cloth Simulation to bring parts of our characters' clothes to life.

UE5 has something called GPU Lightmass Global Illumination, which will allow us to dynamically bake shadows in real-time. This is particularly useful for the much-improved base building elements where we don’t know where people will place their assets.


CT: The switch from UE4 to 5 was a big leap for us which also necessitated a change in physics engine. We’re now using Epic’s new Chaos physics engine. With any big change in tech there’ll always be teething issues and this was no different.

Thankfully we’re over this migration hurdle, I can’t see us having to do anything like this in the future that’ll cause as much disruption.

NM: Team expansion. We’ve gone from 4 people - not really thinking about much other than making a cool game - to 33. There’s been big changes - business-wise - to how we work as a company and it’s required a lot of adapting and growing.


CT: I think I’m most proud of all the improvements we’ve made for the other teams. Looking at how development practices have developed since the first game is really eye opening.

For instance the dialogue condition system in the first game, there was no way of editing existing conditions, having different kinds of logic or any way of duplicating existing setups. Now we’ve got templates, nested And/Or logic and it’s easier than ever to do bulk operations to refactor existing work. It means we can write more curated and reactive encounters for players and quicker iterate on what they’ve already put together.

Everything is easier now, writing dialogue, creating new types of buildings, incorporating new systems, the whole development pipeline flows so much faster than it did before.

Our team isn’t only responsible for sculpting the guts of the software which you’ll be playing but also helping all our colleagues do what they do best and create this immense world for you to dive into. We can build the most intricate generative systems in the world but it’d all be nothing if that artist core wasn’t there to hold it all together.

NM: I’m really proud of the world and unique societies we’ve created and how they’ve slotted together in balance. I’ve learned a lot since Kenshi 1 and I feel like Kenshi 2 is way more fleshed out from those lessons learned. Colton has also been a huge asset in how some of those ideas have evolved together and it’s great to have talented brains to bounce ideas.

MR: I’m proud of what we’ve achieved for such a small studio with relatively limited resources. A game as big as Kenshi needs a lot of assets, which can obviously be quite challenging with a very small team, so we tried to come up with clever pipelines and sets of assets that can be reused in different ways but ultimately end up with a significantly different final look.


CT: Personally I’m currently working on some backend tools to help our localisation team manage commonly used terminology as well as reworking our deployment pipeline to be more configurable and cross platform.

The latter is very much us limbering up for making the Kenshi 2 update cycle more robust and help free up our own machines for other development work. Instead of me needing to build the game on my own computer and stop whatever else I might’ve been doing, we’ll be able to offload the heavy lifting onto some server and crack on with something important and not staring at a progress bar.

NM: We’ve created a really cool narrative system which I won’t spoil, but I will say that at any chance I get, I will talk my friends’ ears off about this genius creation that is super cool and they have no idea what I’m talking about but you’re gonna love I hope. Our QA, Chris, has helped hugely in testing out this monstrosity and I feel like myself and Colton have entered some kind of FCS matrix where we have finally become one with the dialogue system. The most fun part of my job is where I get to really challenge my technical brain to bend our software and push it to its fullest potential. I love finding hacks and cheats within it.

MR: Aside from day-to-day asset creation, in a broader context we are trying to finalise some of the asset creation workflow in order to speed up the asset creation process, this will allow us to streamline our work and have the remaining assets to be made in a more productive way. Not only does it allow us to have a better understanding of what assets and to what limit we can develop, we can also have more assets added with our limited resources.


CT: As much as I do enjoy making the other teams run as smoothly as they can I’m itching to get back into adding some new features to the game itself. I’ve had some concept art come through as some modular bridges that Mohamad’s team is currently putting together and I’m really excited to get to work on the tools that’ll make all those separate models a fully modular set of reusable bridges that we can quickly plonk down anywhere in the world.


CT: Gotta be exploring our new world and [REDACTED] without a doubt.

As a programmer I don’t get a full view of things like narrative or new places in their full in-depth context, so playing the final game in full and getting to meet all the new characters and visit all the strange new places is going to be a real treat.

We get feature requests through every so often related to some of these like “we’d like to a dialogue condition to check if a character is wearing shoes” or “check if a character has a particular item” which are simple enough for us to add but open up so many new possibilities for sort of specific interactive narratives that the writers are able to craft. I’ve just done a quick count and we’ve just about doubled the amount of conditions and effects that the dialogue system is capable of!

And this is just dialogue, the amount of things that just were not possible in Kenshi 1 is growing bigger every day. You think those overhaul mods are big? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

I’m equally if not more excited what the community will cook up with all our new features. We’re bound by our budgets and lore considerations, I want to see what you mad lads will do with it all!

NM: I can’t wait to see people playing our stuff, talking about it, getting pissed off by it, just enjoying it. It’s also a little frightening as sharing your writing makes you feel really quite vulnerable, but seeing people immerse themselves and escape to our world that we’re so proud of will be amazing.

MR: What I like about Kenshi is customisation. Being able to customise and make our own world is the best experience I can personally expect from a game. With that in mind and knowing all the planned assets, I'm very excited to have unlimited ways of making things for my own playthrough. People who played the first game understand my point, however, I think the experience and scale of what we as players can experience in Kenshi 2 will be significantly different and unique.


CT: So much, but I wouldn’t want to ruin Dan’s marketing plan by spilling all our beans now. All good things come to those who wait ;)


Okay that was a lot of text. How about something a bit more visual? Here’s a screenshot…as a treat.



Please note - this is not representative of final quality and is prior to us adding UE5’s Lumen lighting features. We have brightened this night-time shot a little in post to bring out the detail in the rocks. That's the only edit.




We know that sometimes it can be a pain trying to get a perfect angle when recording videos or taking a screenshot in Kenshi. Clipping can drive you mad, character close-ups are near impossible and the camera sticking to the ground can be a right faff. And what if you just want to move the camera vertically? 

Well we’ve a small update to address the above problems that also adds a handy lil rule of thirds overlay grid for getting those perfect shots.

We’d like to set some expectations here: this isn’t an all-singing AAA photo mode with a ton of filters, facial expression controls or time-of-day changes. As we’ve said many times before - we’re spending our time pretty much exclusively on Kenshi 2 right now. But these little additions and fixes helped our internal team creating Kenshi content, so we thought we’d pass them on to the community. 

If you’re wanting to go a little further with your shots and add some depth-of-field et al, you could always (at your own risk) give the impressive post-processing injector ReShade a go. Just be aware that any performance issues experienced using ReShade fall outside our remit.

If you experience any issues after the update, please read this post on how to report crashes or bugs and make a post in the Lo-Fi Games forum, ensuring that you’re nice to our lovely moderators.


We asked a few Kenshi content creators to give an early version of the Free Camera Mode a go and they were kind enough to oblige. While we had some pretty high expectations for the content we were blown away by what they delivered in such a short amount of time. Check it out below:

Warning: Some spoiler content in videos
















Cool Kid Croc



Paganacho



Twisted Logic Gaming LLC






To celebrate the release of the Free Camera Mode, we’re holding a screenshot competition. Three lucky winners will each win one of our lovely Beak Thing Hoodies.

Screenshots must be unmodded, fit into one of the below categories, and be submitted before the 21st April. Winners will be announced on 29th April on our social media.


Landscape - Whether you’re setting off on a new adventure or heading to a familiar place, go ahead and capture the amazing landscapes that you go through to get to your destination. 

Action - From swords, bows and martial arts, we want to see your squad in action. This category is a great opportunity to try out the ‘camera rotate’ feature, as adding a tilt to your photos can help create a sense of motion.

Character - It’s time to show off your best character. For this category, you should showcase one character. They can be stealing, training, drinking, etc. but your main character needs to be the focus of the photo.

To enter your screenshots, share them on X (Twitter), Instagram, Threads, Facebook or in our Discord and please state in your post what category you’re submitting to, along with the hashtag #KenshiFreeCam. Feel free to tag our accounts, especially if you’re submitting photos on Instagram as this will make it easier for us to find your submissions.

Winners will be hand-picked by the Lo-Fi team, whose judgement will hinge on creativity and category suitability.

All submissions must adhere to our competition terms and conditions and the Official Kenshi Discord Server rules found in the “📏rules-and-faq📏” channel.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/233860/Kenshi/

One last thing - Kenshi is 67% off on Steam until April 8, so if you’ve not yet bagged yourself a copy, or if you have a friend you’ve been trying to get on the Kenshi train, now’s a good time to give them a poke. 

Thanks for reading and as always - a big thank you to our community. That’s all for now. Be sure to come and say hello in our Discord, follow us on the socials and sign up to our newsletter.

https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

1.0.67
Added free camera mode for screenshots and videos. Toggle with ;

If you experience any issues after the update, please read this post on how to report crashes or bugs and make a post in the Lo-Fi Games forum, ensuring that you’re nice to our lovely moderators.

https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

FCS 2.14.1 was causing a few issues for some users, this hotfix should address those bugs. 

If you experience any issues after the update, please read this post on how to report crashes or bugs and make a post in the Lo-Fi Games forum, ensuring that you’re nice to our lovely moderators.

• Fixed issue causing fonts to increase to 825 instead of 8.25 in regions where commas are used in place of decimal points
• Fixed NPCs accusing you of trespassing when committing any other type of crime outside
• Fix for a bug where guards wouldn't investigate alarms

https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

FCS 2.14.1 was causing a few issues for some users, this hotfix should address those bugs. 

If you experience any issues after the update, please read this post on how to report crashes or bugs and make a post in the Lo-Fi Games forum, ensuring that you’re nice to our lovely moderators.

• Fixed issue causing fonts to increase to 825 instead of 8.25 in regions where commas are used in place of decimal points
• Fixed NPCs accusing you of trespassing when committing any other type of crime outside
• Fix for a bug where guards wouldn't investigate alarms

https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

FCS 2.14 was causing a few issues for some users, this hotfix should address those bugs. 

If you experience any issues after the update, please read this post on how to report crashes or bugs and make a post in the Lo-Fi Games forum, ensuring that you’re nice to our lovely moderators.

• Fixed incorrect version number in displayed in title bar
• Fixed not being able to add instances
• Fixed wordswap preview auto-capitalisation if line starts with format tag
• Fixed merging level data
• Fixed blocking merges with base mods
• Fixed select all mods toggle button not working when all existing mods are listed in mods.cfg
• Fixed translated words percentage display
• Updated spellcheck
• Spellcheck now checks for valid words either side of an apostrophe
• Fixed spell check not displaying changes in translation mode
• Updated find and replace window
• All open windows now freshed when replacing an existing value from this window
• Matching search terms now get highlighted
• Added Whole word match option
• Translation mode now only shows results once when finding a result in translation and source text, highlights second column for results
• Source text now shown in translation mode
• Added column sorting
• Added find/replace for single item in translation mode by right clicking in navigation form
• Added Instance counts to custom columns and item filter
• Added open form history with back and forward buttons
• Added translation lexicon, a system for translators which guesses to suggest words that the translator may want to use in similar lines.
• Added ability to double click in a text box to select the whole word
• Added shortcuts
• Global
• F3 - Show game world window
• CTRL+W - close window
• CTRL + SHIFT + W - Close all windows
• CTRL + SHIFT + O - Open any file
• Translation mode
• Pressing enter will automatically jump to the next line variant to translate
• CTRL+Up and CTRL+Down in the extended text editor will change the active line
• Text boxes
• Ctrl+Backspace deletes previous word
• Changed cleanup operation for removing invalid references to only occur on references for the current active mod
• Improved wordswap auto-capitalisation rules in word swap preview window
• Mod dropdown list in merge window now sorted alphabetically

https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

Today we’re bringing Kenshi 1.0.64 and FCS 2.14 out of experimental and into the main branch.

We have previously summarised some of the content of this update in this post when we launched 1.0.60, but we had a couple of issues that meant we rolled it back into the experimental branch while we fixed those bugs.

We'll continue to release any potentially useful updates to the Forgotten Construction Set as we update it internally to help us build Kenshi 2. [Edit - for those of you wondering, the FCS is a bespoke supplemental tool and is not engine-specific; we're still building Kenshi 2 in Unreal Engine as previously stated].

If you experience any issues after the update, please ensure you have read through this post and tried all known fixes. If you’re still having issues then read this post on how to report crashes or bugs and make a post in the Lo-Fi Games forum, ensuring that you’re nice to our lovely moderators.

Please note that we are almost exclusively focused on developing Kenshi’s prequel: Kenshi 2, so fixes to long-standing bugs in the original title are very unlikely at this stage. Bug reports will help us identify any potential issues caused by the 1.0.64 update.

Below is the exhaustive list of updates that the main branch is receiving, compiling versions 1.0.56 - 1.0.64:

Version 1.0.56

• Japanese translation update

Version 1.0.57 (FCS 2.1)

• Added documentation for FCS
• Adapted from our own in-house documentation
• Non-comprehensive, but it's a start!
• Added improved item search functionality
• Recursive property and reference searching

E.g.

• find squads with more than 10 skeletons
• (In Squads section) squad.v0 > 10; squad.race = skeleton
• find research items with ingredients with values over 1000 cats
• (In Research section) cost.value > 1000
• Building shells requiring construction materials with ingredients that have a value over 100 cats
• (In Building Shell section) construction.ingredients.value > 100

• Added ability to search using Regex

E.g.

• Find all dialogue lines with numbers in text
• (In _lines section) text ? (\b[0-9]+\b)

• Significantly improved performance of item filtering

• Added an "Everything" section to search through all items at once
• Added a new panel when translating conversations
• Now displays what dialogue package references the conversation being translated as well as what event trigger can start this conversation
• Added additional functionality to the "Set field" window
• Can now remove references in addition to adding them
• Can bulk modify values with addition, subtraction, division and multiplication

E.g.

• Can now select all research items and halve the amount of items required to complete
• Can select any number of weapons and multiply bleed damage multipliers by 1.5
• Added spell check feature
• Works for any multi line item property

E.g.

• Descriptions for items, races, and buildings
• Dialogue lines
• Added option in merge window to show previously skipped changes
• Added multi line display on single lines for change list and merge mod windows
• Added ability to open items from the merge window
• Added tree view for notes
• Dialogue lines now parented to conversations

• Added ability to more easily navigate merge and todo trees with arrows keys (left and right now expand and collapse nodes)
• Added categories and filtering options to errors window
• Added error reporting on more problems loading def files
• Added number of errors to the errors window title
• Added error to be displayed if fcs.def has invalid FCSEnum value
• Added lots more error types as well
• Added derived score to dialogue lines display
• Added additional UI for Todo window, added delete option
• Added ability to use Ctrl-A to select all items in a list
• Added a reset columns function to turn off all custom columns at once
• Added dialogue keyboard shortcuts
• Ctrl+1-5 : change speaker
• Ctrl+L : add line
• Ctrl+I : add interjector
• Added ability to restore backups when loading mods
• Added modified dialogue lines under owning dialogue in change list
• Added ability for TripleInt properties to be displayed with % signs
• Added ability to show % symbols when displaying values in custom columns
• Added copy dialogue line stringID action to dialogue editor
• Added MODIFIED_MISSING item state
• Added a warning when deleting an item with locked propertiesAdded check to stop accidentally trying to open hundreds of items at once
• Added combined description panels in dialogue package editor
• Added 'Expand Link' to dialogue context menu
• Added warnings to a dialogue line translation when original text is changed
• Added ability to change mod folder location in fcs_settings.def
• Added ability for events to display descriptions from FCS_enums.def
• Added assets folder path to fcs_settings.def
• Added GameData.saveSafely() function that doesn't corrupt the existing file if it fails.
• Added restore option if a dialogue line was deleted by the active mod
• Added additional checks to avoid creating invalid links when merging mods
• Updated translation mode with new features/fixes
• When updating duplicated text, a new option is given to update just the text in this conversation vs everywhere else
• Opening a conversation no longer always opens a new form, if one is already open it is brought to the front
• Updating duplicate text now refreshes all nodes/forms with updated text
• Renamed ToDo toolstrip button to Notes and added an icon
• Improved resizing behaviour of Errors window
• Improved resizing behaviour of Notes window
• Pressing down arrow key in 'add reference' window switches focus to item list
• List References window opens all selected items when OK pressed
• Clear changes command in error list resolves 'Modified item undefined error'
• Listing references now shows what field item is referenced by
• Added a bit more info when displaying what dialogue lines have effects that reference an item
• Standardised descriptions in fcs.def when referencing val0/1/2
• Sometimes we had val1/2/3 for extra confusion

Bug Fixes

• Fixed custom column duplication
• Fixed potential duplication of global settings and artefacts lists
• Fixed todo list sometimes not filtering correctly
• Fixed mod version number being overwritten
• Fixed removed fields not appearing in misc section if there is a reference list of the same name
• Fixed cleanup if there is a reference list with the same name as a removed field
• Fixed system thinking a mod has changed if you just select a reference property
• Fixed merge dialogue showing extra DELETED items
• Fixed change list not displaying MODREF values correctly
• Fixed some other incorrect uses of GameData Desc flags
• Fixed custom column menu bug introduced by adding the reset command
• Fixed reverting items not reverting all subitems
• Fixed crash reverting subitems in change list
• Fixed crash deleting items that own subitems
• Fixed being able to modify locked dialogue packages
• Fixed crash when cloning items
• Fixed reverting MODIFIED_MISSING items
• Fixed merge changes with only NEWREF or NEWINST data being tagged as conflicts
• Fixed save file backups being deleted if save failed
• Fixed exception opening missing reference errors in translation mode
• Fixed bug deleting items that are deleted by a later mod
• Fixed being unable to delete broken dialogue lines
• Fixed being able to edit deleted line items
• Fixed some issues with forms owned by merge dialogue
• Fixed close all button making some windows unopenable

Version 1.0.58 (FCS 2.11)

• Fixed a bug that caused items to use old names

Version 1.0.59 (FCS 2.12)

• Fixed a bug that messed up dialogue events for a few NPCs
• Minor bug fixes for FCS

FCS 2.13

• Added find and replace button to toolbar
• Replacing with a blank string results in a confirmation popup
• Escape or cancel button closes this
• Searching for items in translation mode only checks wordswaps and dialogue lines
• Window now has results section
• Can open items from here
• Field of found item also displayed
• Added read only mode
• Active file is locked so other programs can't write to it
• Added a warning if you open a file that is already open elsewhere
• Error resolution actions disabled in read only mode
• Added support for custom background images / custom colours
• Added settings window, no more text file editing for application settings
• Added sorting on reference list columns
• Added sorting to notes window
• Added ability to add multiple notes at once
• Added wordswap preview button to dialogue editor
• Added [...] button to conversation window
• Added [...] buttons to dialogue package form window
• Added Delete Item to [...] commands
• Added ability to disable dialogue branches in translation mode
• Added display for notes in dialogue root node in translation mode
• Added diff mode for use with subversion
• Added key shortcut to add reference (Insert or +)
• Added logging with options in settings file
• Added support for custom autosave interval
• Added filter timing display in navigation window title
• Added ability to allow merging a mod to clear MISSING state
• Improved custom columns with recursive field support
• E.g 'residents.building'
• Improved searching
• Basic StringID search uses StartsWith to avoid partial matches with other items
• Items added or removed from filtered list if they no longer match filter
• Improved performance of translation mode dialogue tree view greatly
• Improved change list
• Reverting items in here now updates their state properly
• Interjection and fail nodes labelled as such
• Doesn't refresh on activation if no changes
• Improved set field window
• Now has open file button for path fields
• Improved Errors window
• Take Ownership error fix now tells you which mod you need to fix in if it fails
• Dialogue errors now ignored for items deleted by a later mod
• Added Copy ID action
• Also available in merge window
• Improved translation mode
• Exported .po files now flag entries as needing work if original source text has changed or user has flagged them as needing work
• Update lines box can now be closed with the escape key
• Layout data now saved to appdata
• Opening an item now restores minimised windows
• Blocked changing stringID if any properties are locked
• Browsing for files now default directory set to assets folder
• Cannot flag new items to be discarded in merge window
• ItemFilter assumes default value for MISSING fields
• Changed how discarded changes work when merging mods
• Now saves a message to the header to explicitly discard changes rather than relying on the save counters which could have false positives

Bug Fixes

• Loads of minor things not mentioned in this list
• Fixed Close all windows button closing translation navigation window
• Fixed SetField not updating reference values on references with no target
• Fixed error message if saving failed
• Fixed loading locked removed references messing up item state
• Fixed merge button not being enabled sometimes
• Fixed merge window check all action missing some items
• Fixed merging mods not merging item rename changes
• Fixed properties being set on wrong dialogue line if you right click
• Fixed reference state marking LOCKED items as OWNED
• Fixed stack overflow when reverting dialogues containing loops
• Fixed states of modified instance data if nothing changed
• Fixed translation item list not being refreshed after loading
• Fixed Close All button sometimes being hidden in the overflow list if window is too small
• Fixed LOCKED|REMOVED items appearing in change list

Version 1.0.60

Global

• Added some default keybinds to make it easier to setup SteamDeck/controller configs (you need to press the button to reset your keybinds to default)
• Fixed the issue with changing font size in the options

Spanish localisation updates:

• Standardised the translation of "Beak Things" and "Skimmers" to "Pinchostruo" and "Patineto", respectively
• Corrected mistranslations of words like "Armour King" to "Rey de la armadura"
• Used correct tenses for skill-related verbs like "crafting" and "farming"

German Localisation updates:

• Quotation marks and ellipses (…) are now properly displayed. No more text gaps!
• Translated previously untranslated text
• Fixed text overflow on certain UI elements
• Some incorrect skill name translations were fixed
• Generic NPC names are now correctly gendered to match the NPC’s gender (for example: Bauer/Bäuerin, Söldner/Söldnerin)
• Fixed many naming inconsistencies, including Rebirth and the Skeleton race
• Skimmers now retain their English name and Skimsands was accordingly changed to “Skimwüste”
• The “Gutters” faction is now correctly called “Ausweider”
• Reworked many UI texts, item descriptions, tips and tutorials to fix errors and increase legibility

Portuguese (Brazil) localisation updates:

• Fixed typos, grammar, and UI display issues
• Standardised the translation of gameplay and lore elements for consistency
• Gendered names now used for generic NPCs like peasants, soldiers, and mercenaries

Japanese

• Translated texts that were displayed in English into Japanese.
• Speed-related displays such as miles/hr are now translated into Japanese.
• Re-worded some instructional and help text.

Simplified Chinese update:

• Fixed an issue where item weights were displayed incorrectly, causing incorrect weight values to be shown

Version 1.0.61

• Town names are no longer saved so they can be changed by translations and mods
• Characters can spawn with items in their belt slot
• A fix for sometimes not playing the correct ambient audio bank
• Fixed gui stats displaying differently when paused (for crossbows)
• A mystery path following bug fix

Version 1.0.62

• Fixed game crashing when dialogue censorship was switched on
• Changed default font size from 0 to 4
• Fixed new game starts window displaying incorrectly with larger font sizes
• Fixed a crash on exit

FCS 2.14

• Moved to .NET 4.5 (to allow for use of async tasks)
• New features:
• Added undo system
• Added settings window
• Added Themes
• Dark mode now available
• Custom themes can be made by users
• Font size can now be changed also
• Added detective feature - Shows which mods changed a particular value
• Added new warnings/errors
• Warning for sounds with 0 intensity and efficiency multipliers
• Reference type error checks
• Added message if failed to take ownership of missing item
• Added replace reference button to navigation window context menu
• Updated custom columns
• Added new dialog box for creating custom columns
• Combines previous separate UI elements for fields and lists
• Added support for list.v0 syntax in item filters and custom columns
• Columns can be of the form 'residents.building'
• Items can now be sorted by values in reference list columns
• Updates to conversation window
• Added dialogue word swap permutation preview
• Opening a conversation window for a line will select the original line rather than any links
• Fixed file changes not being flagged when deleting dialogue lines
• Updates to translation pipeline
• Added spell check to translation mode, items with spelling errors now highlighted in orange
• Added duplicate wordswap button to translation mode context menu
• Added further support for flagging changes to translated text
• Added extra info to .pot file comments, % chance for character to be female
• Added right click option to mark a line as translated
• Added search options in find window for translation mode
• Dialogue root notes displayed in translation mode
• Tags now get exported to .po/t files
• Todo items now have translation tags
• Toolbar items now hidden as well as disabled in translation mode
• Fixing odd "syntax error" poedit keeps moaning about due to trailing whitespace or things being in a different place than expected
• Fixed filter text not being cleared when you open a file in translation mode
• Fixed find and replace _original_text existence check
• Fixed find and replace operation being able to replace _original_text field in translation mode
• Fixed translated strings not being exported properly with escaped quotation marks
• Fixed translation mode crash if dialogue contains invalid references
• Updated notes window
• Added creation timestamp to notes
• Added display name in brackets to items
• Added column sorting options
• Changed note timestamps format to unix time
• Fixed tags not getting saved when set
• Updated find and replace window
• Added error message for invalid regex in find/replace window
• For dialogue line results the parent dialogue package is now also displayed as an extra column
• Changed how nodes get created for dialogue lines to be easier to read
• Can now handle find and replace operation for references
• Updated spell check feature
• Added line variation label to window
• Fixed spell check bug where line variations would be skipped over
• Fixed translation mode spell check issues
• Dictionary now cleared when loading a new mod, in case target language has changed
• Updated change list
• No longer refreshes on activation if no changes
• Stopped items with the LOCKED REMOVED items state appearing in the change list
• Fixed reverting deleted references in change list not resolving the reference
• Misc changes/fixes
• Changed how discarded changes work when merging mods
• FCSEnum property dropdown lists sorted alphabetically
• Fix when saving unparented dialogue line (this shouldn't be happening anyway but here we are)
• Fixed FCSEnum property change callback being called with strings
• Fixed OWNED|LOCKED|REMOVED items not appearing in merge window
• Fixed asset list incorrectly displaying some files as missing
• Fixed constant value word swaps being detected as duplicates when they shouldn't
• Fixed crash expanding a dialogue link connecting to a parent line
• Fixed crash removing last dialogue from package with show only used filter active
• Fixed custom words being added to dictionary without being changed to lowercase first
• Fixed item filter crash on null default value
• Fixed item name and stringID being editable in read only mode
• Fixed merging removed items and references if mod being merged is open
• Fixed not being able to delete invalid dialogue references from dialogue packages, and related crashes with that context menu
• Fixed undefined reference lists not displaying TripleInt values
• Item ownership lookup only uses specified reference lists
• Last loaded mod automatically selected in mod selection window
• Layout file now saves minimised window states
• Remove Invalid References action removes references with the wrong type
• Take Ownership error fix tells you which mod you need to fix in if it fails
Version 1.0.63
• Fixed missing Japanese translation.
• Fixed save manager getting stuck if trying to copy a source folder that no longer exists.
• Added a player messagebox to inform their save is likely messed up in this situation
Version 1.0.64
• Blocked being able to delete active save from the save window
https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

As the year comes to a close and we recover from our Christmas party, we’d like to thank everyone for continuing to your Kenshi love through mods, screenshots and fanart. Keep them coming, we’ll keep on posting them! 

Thanks again to everyone who helped us pick the Kenshi 2 localisers, your input was hugely appreciated. 

We'd also like to add a huge thanks to everyone who’s copped themselves some merch this year, keep an eye out for more goodies to come and let us know in the comments what you’d like to see. 




Mods

• Traduzione Italiana Kenshi from Survival Games
• AQUARIUM from Momayo
• BOX MAN from AGO
• Rest at Campfires from RadarTruck

Screenshots

• "Just a dip" from Bloyd
• "Cannibal Plains" from Alexrrazabal 
• "I forgot how much HP leviathans have." from SirJuste
• "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘶𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘣𝘢𝘭" from Alexrrazabal
• "One hell of a bad day..." from Unknownself-kenshi
• "Overrun" from Dr.PyroBlazer 
• ”Weather forecast for today.Death.” from Longjumping_Ring_901
• Untitled screenshot from let everything burn
• "Gaurdsman" from (XOF)Toasty
• "ninja ♥♥♥♥” from renek3

Fanart

• "Commission of my Kenshi character" by AnaCGArt"
• "Izumi portrait" from RENTURO
• Kenshi_31 from Rumpelstiltskin
• "The number one, bestselling children's book" from 9ura40k
• "The old warrior in Sho-Battai" from 
• "Made a wallpaper in blender inspired by Kenshi" from Mark Makovey

In the Christmas rush we unfortunately missed out this beautiful Beep & Agnu piece from Freelance Illustrator Herheim in our video so we figured we’ll feature it here. It's gorgeous!




https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/fWohhQGOpWebeSkpvcW0capmnj5iGTQu_3ousx5pGIS0A9hFIeCX_JsvFWv0CkQZr4dbejWkMBI4v8JO2eZzlJpbOg8rhm3XYrYJfKp-WZ-tV3A-0qyqxnddw7DIhmCcnVm-E3Rr2DZGXlcTY1QG0pA

It wouldn’t be winter without a blessing from our Lord Gaben and 2023 is no exception. For those of you who haven’t yet immersed yourselves in what has been called the “6th Most Stressful Open World Game”, now’s your chance to chill out on your PC with a light bit of struggle over the Christmas period with 55% off as part of the Steam Winter Sale. 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/233860/Kenshi/

We are looking forward to hearing from you in the new year. Keep tagging us with your creations on our social media channels or Discord server, especially if you want to have a chance to feature in our next Community Spotlight. 

Happy holidays from everyone at Lo-Fi Games. See you in 2024.

https://discord.com/invite/R6258etsHE

Hi Kenshi crew, we’re back!

The spooky month is now over and we hope Kenshi's tricks were but a whisper, and its treats a haunting delight!

Today we’re sharing a shiny new Community Spotlight video and announcing the Discord Halloween screenshot winners.

Big thanks to everyone who submitted a spooky screenshot to our competition in the Official Kenshi Discord. So many of you shared some fantastic shots and it was great to see them all come in!

The winner for our unmodded category is Dr.PyroBlazer with this shot of their crew taking on maybe one too many Fogmen. Do you think they’re walking away from this?



The winner for the modded category is Alexrrazabal with this shot of their character in some pretty rad armour, we wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of this guy.



Not forgetting our runner-up, Slowline! They submitted this brilliant capture of a creature lurking in the fog. We certainly wouldn’t want to be in their situation!



T-shirts will be on their way to the winners very soon! We’d also like to say a big welcome to all our new Discord members, do make yourselves at home!

If you’re not yet in the official Discord server, come join the community for Kenshi chats plus the chance to take part in future competitions and be in with more chances to win Kenshi goodies!




We’d like to bring your attention to a newly released Italian full-game fan translation from the dedicated team over at Survival Games Italia.

This mod of the week selection from last week is now available over on Steam Workshop!

A massive thank you to everyone at Survival Games Italia for making Kenshi accessible to all Italian players. Special shout-outs to Ruiner and Aeneas Romae who contributed many hours alongside Wandering, Giumaho, wolvesimon, Freakkina, Godran65, ELE from Streets and ruttalisk87.

Check it out here. Grazie mille!

You folks shared great community-created content with us throughout October, whether it was fanart, screenshots or mods, we loved each and every one of them! Take a look at who’s featured in our latest video and let us know your favourites!



Content included in this video:

Mods

• Gastronome mod
  
• Baap
  
• No Hope No Escape BeakThing
  
• Illumination and Hologram Statues

Screenshots

• Red sky at night.
  
• March of the Beak Things.
  
• "My small WIP self-sufficient colony for early-mid game"
  
• "Some moments along the journey."
  
• Enjoying the view.
  
• "Just a few more hours of this shift"
  
• Better run!
  
• "How does this happen???"

Fan Art

• "The Horned Devil possessed a sinful mind..."
  
• "Second time making beak thing from clay and he’s so handsome"
  
• "Wandering, never wondering"
  
• "We Die We Hate We Truth"
  
• "Honored Champion of the Crab Lands!"
  
• "Feel the warmth of Ells"
  
• "Pondering shek anatomy"
  
• "Hiver in the Ash"

The festive season is slowly making itself known again, and we wouldn’t mind seeing some festive mods, fanart and screenshots a little early this year! You’ll also have a chance to feature in our next Community Spotlight if you tag us on our social media channels and Discord server!

Safe travels, Kenshi crew!