The game that scratches this itch for me is Kenshi. It's basically Fallout, but thousands of years after the apocalypse and set on an alien planet. There are no more bullets, no more vehicles, and very little hope in a bleak hellscape. The visual and musical aesthetic is one unlike anything else I've played: Japanese apocalypse scrap-punk. The massive rusty hulks of fallen starships dot the arid landscape, and people melt down the iron to hammer into blades and armor. Technology from the Old Times is worth more than anything, and tech-hunters search for hidden vaults and laboratories. The wilds teem with weird and deadly beasts that will literally rip your character's limbs off and eat them, forcing you to crawl to safety if you don't bleed to death. One of the biggest factions are sneering aristocrats who enslave the poor, and the other biggest faction are all unhinged religious fundamentalists who hate women and black people. As you could imagine, this shitty world is rife with slavery, and even the player isn't safe.
On the flip side, once you survive the grueling early game, gather and train more people, and learn how to fight, you can turn the tables. I started off as single fugitive in rags who spent every night huddled between some rocks and praying the bandits wouldn't find me. Now I'm 84 different people, all with their own skills and gear. Warriors, workers and explorers. Even built a big-ass base and researched hydroponics- once I lay low the dogmatic dipshits of the self-styled Holy Nation and seize their farmlands, I will use this technology to feed the entire wasteland.
As for the slave traders, I've been terrorizing the fuck out of them, raiding slave markets left and right, killing guards and freeing captives. Some of them run off right away, some join my party. I capture the slaver bosses and bring them back to my town to stand trial. They are invariably found guilty, and executed by crossbow firing squad. 10/10 good times, here are some other cool things that have happened to slavers in my Kenshi game:
-Eaten by pet hounds
-Eaten by pet dinosaur
-Eaten by pet giant crabs
-Dropped off a mountain
-Used as a training dummy, being beaten unconscious and given medical treatment over and over to level up my character's Martial Arts skill
-Just straight up stabbed in combat
-Burned at the stake
-Put in The Peeler
All in all a great game with a lot of things you can do to slavers. Highly, highly recommend.
Yeah, it's a kind of hybrid RPG/RTS where you can switch control between party members, so you could play as one character on an adventure while others carry out different tasks. Definitely looks mulitplayer, especially once you start sending parties and squads all over the place, but it's just one player running the collective. Like if Mount and Blade had a baby with KOTOR
It's easy for me, but I'm a huge fan of clunky old games, and even though Kenshi isn't old, it really has that feel. If you cant stand playing ancient games you'll probably not be able to get over the feel of Kenshi.
I absolutely love Kenshi. But once I built a fortress in that green fertile valley near the terrifying religious dudes and got strong enough to kick their ass whenever they came knocking, I felt like I had kind of "won." I made a functioning society that wouldn't completely suck to live in. At that point I started sending my main character out with a few close companions to do adventurer shit, but it was, funnily enough, too easy at that point to be very worthwhile.
Get your ass whooped and robbed by bandits. Genuinely the only real way to train your combat early-game. They won't enslave you so you'll prolly be ok.
Once you can actually fight them, then you basically enslave them. As a training dummy, of course. Keep knocking them out and then when they get back up, just do it again before they can run away. You can usually get a lot of use out of one bandit.
The game that scratches this itch for me is Kenshi. It's basically Fallout, but thousands of years after the apocalypse and set on an alien planet. There are no more bullets, no more vehicles, and very little hope in a bleak hellscape. The visual and musical aesthetic is one unlike anything else I've played: Japanese apocalypse scrap-punk. The massive rusty hulks of fallen starships dot the arid landscape, and people melt down the iron to hammer into blades and armor. Technology from the Old Times is worth more than anything, and tech-hunters search for hidden vaults and laboratories. The wilds teem with weird and deadly beasts that will literally rip your character's limbs off and eat them, forcing you to crawl to safety if you don't bleed to death. One of the biggest factions are sneering aristocrats who enslave the poor, and the other biggest faction are all unhinged religious fundamentalists who hate women and black people. As you could imagine, this shitty world is rife with slavery, and even the player isn't safe.
On the flip side, once you survive the grueling early game, gather and train more people, and learn how to fight, you can turn the tables. I started off as single fugitive in rags who spent every night huddled between some rocks and praying the bandits wouldn't find me. Now I'm 84 different people, all with their own skills and gear. Warriors, workers and explorers. Even built a big-ass base and researched hydroponics- once I lay low the dogmatic dipshits of the self-styled Holy Nation and seize their farmlands, I will use this technology to feed the entire wasteland.
As for the slave traders, I've been terrorizing the fuck out of them, raiding slave markets left and right, killing guards and freeing captives. Some of them run off right away, some join my party. I capture the slaver bosses and bring them back to my town to stand trial. They are invariably found guilty, and executed by crossbow firing squad. 10/10 good times, here are some other cool things that have happened to slavers in my Kenshi game:
-Eaten by pet hounds
-Eaten by pet dinosaur
-Eaten by pet giant crabs
-Dropped off a mountain
-Used as a training dummy, being beaten unconscious and given medical treatment over and over to level up my character's Martial Arts skill
-Just straight up stabbed in combat
-Burned at the stake
-Put in The Peeler
All in all a great game with a lot of things you can do to slavers. Highly, highly recommend.
I'd always pegged Kenshi as a collaborative multiplayer game. Is it actually singleplayer?
Yeah, it's a kind of hybrid RPG/RTS where you can switch control between party members, so you could play as one character on an adventure while others carry out different tasks. Definitely looks mulitplayer, especially once you start sending parties and squads all over the place, but it's just one player running the collective. Like if Mount and Blade had a baby with KOTOR
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Yeah, Kenshi is great for what op is looking for. I'm looking forward to playing more of it when I'm less busy.
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It's easy for me, but I'm a huge fan of clunky old games, and even though Kenshi isn't old, it really has that feel. If you cant stand playing ancient games you'll probably not be able to get over the feel of Kenshi.
Ah, Kenshi. The best drug dealer simulator ever
I absolutely love Kenshi. But once I built a fortress in that green fertile valley near the terrifying religious dudes and got strong enough to kick their ass whenever they came knocking, I felt like I had kind of "won." I made a functioning society that wouldn't completely suck to live in. At that point I started sending my main character out with a few close companions to do adventurer shit, but it was, funnily enough, too easy at that point to be very worthwhile.
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Get your ass whooped and robbed by bandits. Genuinely the only real way to train your combat early-game. They won't enslave you so you'll prolly be ok.
Once you can actually fight them, then you basically enslave them. As a training dummy, of course. Keep knocking them out and then when they get back up, just do it again before they can run away. You can usually get a lot of use out of one bandit.
I'm quite excited to get this game but I gotta wait for steam sale!
This looks dope. I'll check it out next time it goes on sale