Kenshi Interview

Russian website GameStar has wrangled up an interview with Lo-Fi Games' Chris Hunt about the indie developer's upcoming squad-based samurai RPG, Kenshi. Luckily, the Q&A is presented in English, so I can offer up some non-translated snippets:
In your published debut video we can notice that Kenshi a game with an open world, with large-scale battles, in which players will have to travel as a team. But what aim will the players have to try to achieve? Will they be completing quests? Making money? What are they going to do in the cities?

There are several elements to it. The player can take up various different professions, eg trading, stealing, bounty hunting, soldier/mercenary work, crafting, owning shops and so on. I aim to make that list as long as possible for the final game. Money will be a big one. You need money for everything: equipment, supplies, trading. And as you get richer you can buy buildings in towns or start your own base in the wilderness, and then you will need more money to buy facilities, and they will need upgrading and defending, which will need more men, which will need more money. Then there is the interplay between factions which you will inevitably get mixed up in, you will make friends and enemies no matter what, and it will be in your interest to help out your allies when they need it, because they may do the same for you sometime.

The cities will be your main place to trade, upgrade your equipment, rest, find work or steal, as well as meeting up with other factions. They are not 100% safe however, you can get mugged, arrested, or even caught up in the middle of a bandit raid.

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What is the role-playing component of the game in? Will it be possible to change the arsenal, to upgrade or learn skills? What parameters will each character have?

Every character has an inventory, you can change their armour, weapons, tools, medical supplies etc. There will be a lot of skills too, covering physical stats, weapon proficiencies, combat skills, and non-combat skills, such as engineering, stealth, smithing and medic. In the current version only some skills are enabled, but I will add more as development continues and features are added.