Most of the games we play can be seriously improved when you add a few mods because no game developer is perfect, and no two players feel the same way about what they want from a game experience. Kenshi is a really great game that was released in March of 2013 and really gained a following quickly and consistently.
The game has a great single player experience where you’ll just get to explore and enjoy the game however you like, since it is a sandbox game. Sandbox games can always benefit from mods because there are so many different ways you can take the game.
1. Advanced Character Creation
The characters in Kenshi are definitely really well detailed and can be made to be really beautiful, but there can always be further customization for us to play around with. This advanced character creation mod will allow you to have different options for each race and subrace unlocking a lot of potential.
For example, for the Shek races you’ll get the option to have a reddish Shek as well as have more options for eye colours including green, red, purple, orange, magenta and even grey. There are more face textures and brightness levels for these races as well.
2. Animal Traders
Have you ever been playing Kenshi and just wanted an… interesting animal to join you on your journey? Well, the animal traders mod has your back and allows you to purchase these unique animals from travelling merchants.
These aren’t just regular animals like goats or dogs, you can purchase animals such as robot spiders, swamp turtles, spiders, crabs, land bats and more. There are 13 animals for you to choose from and can definitely change up the way you play the game and make it even funnier when you see a giant robot spider.
3. Attack Slots x2
When playing the vanilla version of Kenshi you are only able to have one attack slot meaning you can only fight with on NPC at a time, which honestly is rather boring. Games are much more fun when you can attack more than one NPC at a time to make the game more difficult.
The Attack Slots x2 mod is going to allow you to have two open attack slots at a time so you can fight more than one NPC which will make fighting in the game much, much harder.
4. Bigger Backpacks
Pretty much any game with an inventory or backpack system has a problem with not having enough slots, so you’ll find this kind of mod for pretty much every game. There’s nothing worse than having to get rid of stuff because you don’t have enough space.
The bigger backpacks mod is awesome because it will change the small backpacks from 8×8 to 12×12 which increases capacity like crazy. Medium will go from 14×10 to 16×16 and the large backpack is going to go from 20×12 to 20×20 giving you so many slots.
5. Cheat (XP Boost)
For a lot of players of Kenshi the XP gain increase just isn’t quick enough, especially when players are playing a new save after years of playing. Sometimes you just want to progress more quickly in the game without using any crazy mods.
This cheat mod is great because it’s super simple and will accelerate all of the experience (XP) you gain in all the stats in the game. This will allow you to get further along in the game without issue!
6. Crossbow Training Station
Getting better at using items in Kenshi can take a lot of time but honestly modders have figured out everything that’s annoying in the game. This crossbow training station is wonderful because it adds a new building item that you can use to increase your crossbow skill.
You’ll find this in the training building category and be able to place it and start working with a crossbow over and over until you get your skill super high so your character can uses it extremely well.
7. Dark UI
It seems like every single app, website and game is now creating a dark mode for our eyes to enjoy instead of having all of the bright whites just burning your eyeballs. Thankfully, there’s a Dark UI mod for Kenshi so you can play in the dark and not have to squint.
This will turn all of the UI in the game to this gorgeous dark version that changes almost all of the UI in the game. Go and play at 2 o’clock in the morning and your eyes won’t have issues!
8. Dummies Plus
Leveling up your skills in the game is an annoying process that can honestly take forever, but using dummies can accelerate this experience gain and make your players super overpowered so you can get on with things.
This Dummies Plus mod has 3 versions, all with different qualities and the third being absolutely wild and overpowering your characters. The basic version adds six dummies, 3 for the medic skill and 3 for the strength so you can train these up to level 15.
9. Enhanced Shopping Economy
One huge annoyance in Kenshi is that if you’re running any kind of business the people coming to purchase items will buy one thing, then be broke and never come back making it hard for you to consistently earn income.
This mod will change up things for your business running in Kenshi by adding shopping lists to characters who didn’t previously have them, and editing income based on the class of people coming into your establishment.
10. Flashier Fight
If you play a ton of the same game, watching the animations is going to get very repetitive and boring especially with fighting in Kenshi. The characters are just going to do the same moves and move rather slowly which can be very boring to watch.
This flashier fighting mod is really great because it will make the AI go in and use more varied moves so you see more interesting animations as well as it making them move more quickly so you can have a better fight experience.
11. Interesting Recruits
Recruits are a pretty important in the game but the ones available to you can get repetitive and just aren’t interesting enough. Using the same recruits over and over leads to repetitive dialogue and boring squads, but no longer!
The Interesting Recruits mod will add 25 characters to your game including 7 new recruits who all have their own dialogue trees and dialogue packages. It even adds 30 random followers for even more fun characters.
12. Let’s Talk
One thing that a lot of players don’t realize is that Kenshi gets progressively more quiet over time because there are so many dialogues in the game that are only used once. Once you see it once, you’ll never see it again for so many things making it very quiet and sad.
This modder decided to go into the game and make it so that these dialogues will stop appearing only once and will be repeated around once a week or so. Installing this mod will make the game feel much more lively, even the bar dialogue will trigger more.
13. NPC Enjoys Shopping More
If you are running any kind of business in Kenshi you are going to see that the NPCs who come to shop are only going to buy your first aid kids, foods, and alcohols, you won’t sell a ton of more expensive items.
This mod will add some new types of NPCs that will be better at shopping and will enjoy shopping more. It also changed up the money that some characters have so you can earn more money from selling things to these characters. Plus, rich characters are going to come to visit once in a while and purchase your more expensive items.
14. Populated Cities
Something that can annoy a lot of players is that sometimes the towns are empty for no real reason and can lead you to having to search for characters to interact with while you’re in a ghost town.
This populated cities mod goes in and makes the cities feel more lively by adding more characters that will be walking around, and will make the characters more active and even more intelligent. The town citizens are going to be living on more interesting schedules and moving around to shop and enjoy the town.
15. Reactive World
If you really appreciate realism in the game, you’ll want to have the reactive world mod. This mod will make it so as things change in your game, the world changes too and things can happen without anything even being done by you.
One of my favourite parts of this mod is the dust bandits civil war. They will start fighting with each other at the moment that the Dust King is taken down and will start having fights in the wilderness which is so interesting.
16. Robot: No Rust Damage
If you play a lot of Kenshi, you are going to start getting really annoyed by the fact that your robots are going to suffer from rust damage over time. This means that you are going to have to go around and find repair locations which can be a pain when you play a ton.
This mod changes the way the game operates so your robots no longer have the problem with rust damage allowing you to keep them going on forever without having to repair them.
17. Shops Have More Items Plus
Getting items in Kenshi can be a struggle if you can’t find a merchant who is selling certain things that you need, because there just aren’t enough spaces in most merchant stores for them to have the goodies.
This shops have more items mod is awesome because it will increase the amount of items for sale by anywhere between 5 and 15 times (depends on the shop type) where you can purchase more interesting items.
18. Sparring Mats
An important skill in Kenshi is the melee defense and it will make it much easier to fight with NPCs and get further along in the game. Unfortunately, in the vanilla version of the game there is no realistic way to train your melee skill.
With this sparring mat mod you are able to add this item to the world and train the melee defense up to level 20 which can let you get further in the game more quickly and have less trouble when fighting.
19. Stackable Items
Inventory is always an issue in games like Kenshi and you’ll find yourself consistently struggling to keep your inventory organized and not having it be completely full.
This stackable items mod is great because it will allow you to stack items in the game up to 1000 so you can carry much more stuff and have less trouble keeping organized and never having to discard items.
20. Stronger Barkeepers
Sometimes the barkeepers just aren’t properly equipped to deal with everything that happens in their establishments. You’ll sometimes see your barkeepers dying and making it harder for you to sell certain items in the early game.
This mod is great because it will increase the barkeeper stats as well as giving them more interesting weapons so they can control the crowds and have a lower chance of death.
Final Thoughts
These mods can completely change the experience when you’re playing Kenshi and can make the game more streamlined. From changing the visuals to allowing you to gain experience quicker, these mods are must haves if you still want to enjoy the experience of playing Kenshi after all these years.
