Vanilla Kenshi is good, but ready-made mod collections can turn it into a completely different game. These are my picks for the best modpacks, from world overhauls to a complete Star Wars reimagining. You can find all my other guides and mod lists on the Kenshi page.
Project Kathun — Clone Wars Era Conversion
Project Kathun – Clone Wars Era Conversion is a mod on top of the original Project Kathun that takes the world of Kenshi into the era of the Clone Wars. The wastelands transform into the planet Kathun, engulfed in a war between Republic clones and Separatist battle droids, and the factions from the base game fade into the background.
The mod is deliberately unbalanced: one experienced Jedi is capable of destroying a battalion of battle droids – just like in the Star Wars canon. A well-trained squad of clones can also cope with a Jedi, so it’s all about tactics and the composition of the group.
- New factions: Confederacy of Independent Systems, Galactic Republic, Revan faction
- New races: Jedi, Padawans (increased limb health and regeneration), clones of the 212th, 104th, 187th battalions and clone medics
- Battle droid commanders and captains
- Darth Maul, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka Tano, Mace Windu, Aayla Secura and other key characters with their squads
- Mercenaries, bounty hunters, Jedi, and Sith available as recruits (requires faction relations of 85+)
- Battle droids and clones available to recruit once you have a base and faction relations of 70+
- More than 20 new starts marked [CW]
- Grand Admiral Thrawn, Boba Fett replaced by Jango Fett
Pay close attention to installation: place the mod at the bottom of your load order. It has required dependencies (Project Kathun, Project Kathun Reworked, New Clone Troopers, Deathwatch, and others), as well as recommended add-ons. The author has put together a separate Steam Workshop collection containing the mods you need.
✅ This mod completely replaces the world of Kenshi. The familiar factions give way to a galactic war, changing how it feels to choose a side or decide whose bases to storm. I recommend enabling Block when you come under fire: your character can deflect bolts, giving you an advantage before closing to melee range.
Universal Wasteland Expansion (UWE)
Universal Wasteland Expansion expands the whole of Kenshi while preserving the logic of the base game. It adds a wealth of content: more factions, armor, activity, and world reactions to your actions.
The key mechanics of UWE are dynamic world states. Kill or capture the leader of a faction – and a chain of cities begins to change owners, filling the resulting power vacuum. Store guards now react to the player trying to sneak inside (this simply didn't work in the original version of the game).
What is combined in one mod:
- Minor Factions Amplified
- Bandits Expansion
- Hiver Expansion
- Shek Kingdom Augmented
- United Cities Heightened
- The Holy Nation Ascended
- Diverse Fauna
- Farming Crops Enhanced
- Lonely Recruits
The mod is placed at the end of the load order. Compatibility patches have been released for UWE with Reactive World, Living World, Kenshi Kaizo, Recruitable Prisoners and other popular mods.
✅ UWE works best as the foundation for a mod setup. It makes vanilla Kenshi noticeably richer and its world more alive, turning a static set of factions into a system with tangible consequences. If you want to put together your own setup from scratch, start here.
Kenshi Genesis
Kenshi Genesis is one of the largest overhaul projects, which its community calls "Kenshi 1.5." Development began in 2019; since then, the team has rebuilt almost every town and added factions, locations, textures, and models for buildings, armor, and weapons.
Almost every town has a new layout and architecture. The maximum faction size rises to 256 and squad size to 50. An in-game year now lasts 365 days, lengthening seasons and affecting crop yields and survival.
- Dawn at 4:00 and sunset at 22:00 (does not affect shop hours or the lasers in Venge)
- Maximum attack slots: 5 (can be overridden with your mod on top of Genesis)
- Redesigned lighting: less intensity, more radius – light sources blend more naturally
Genesis is not compatible with vegetation mods – they can cause buildings to "float". The authors recommend trying Genesis alone first, and only then adding other mods.
✅ Genesis changes first of all the feeling of the world: the original cities cease to be empty boxes. If in the basic version settlements seemed like decoration, here they begin to look like places where you really want to linger and explore the nooks and crannies.
MEGA Kaizo/UWE+ Modpack
MEGA Kaizo/UWE+ Modpack brings together around 600 mods with a ready-made load order file. Its author presents it as the result of many hours of testing on several devices, with stability as the priority while retaining plenty of content.
The collection's key feature is its custom patches that make UWE and Kaizo work properly together. The two mods create a world where factions fight and capture towns, while killing or kidnapping a leader has a real effect on its politics.
For maximum performance, I recommend additionally installing from Nexus:
- RE_Kenshi (engine fixes, attack slot changes)
- Kenshi CTD Fix (fixes crashes related to animations)
- Particle System Override (speeds up particle rendering)
- Kenshi Performance Fix (comprehensive graphics and shader fix from SCARaw)
- Kenshi Extension Plugin (removes the need for NCE patches)
The load order is recorded in a separate file – no need to manually arrange several hundred mods.
✅ This collection is for anyone who wants as much Kenshi content as possible without manually compiling a list of 100,500 mods. The supplied load order file makes the process much simpler.
Lore Friendly Role-Playing Experience
Lore Friendly Role-Playing Experience is built around UWE and Kaizo, with a focus on roleplaying mechanics and staying true to the game's lore. Alongside those two major overhauls, it includes quest systems by StillDoll: escorting trade caravans, working as a guard, and storming towns with an army.
The author deliberately limited anime and fantasy content so the world would still feel like Kenshi. That approach appeals to me.
- Author's quest “Companion Quest: A Drifter’s Story…” (located in Admag)
- Advanced recruiting system in Recruitable Prisoners
- New in-game lore through UWE mechanics
- Atmospheric post-processing using ShaderSSAO and Lights Tweak
- Fixing building interiors in Smooth Interiors and Interior Windows
- Fix inclined construction in Slopeless (Nexus version is more current than Steam)
The build is quite stable even with so many innovations. The same optimization tools from Nexus (Kenshi CTD Fix, PSO, Kenshi Performance Fix) are recommended here.
✅ If UWE + Kaizo seems too overwhelming, Lore Friendly Role-Playing Experience offers the same scale, but with more attention to role-playing mechanics and less aggressive changes. A good option for your first acquaintance with large mod collections.
Large mod collections can put more strain on performance and make the game slow down.
SLOFK — Second Life of Kenshi
SLOFK (Second Life of Kenshi) is a Russian modpack that completely reworks Kenshi. It is one of the few large modpacks with a Russian-speaking community and active support through Discord and VKontakte.
SLOFK's emphasis is on depth of change, not scale just for the sake of scale. Combat balance, animations, factions and locations have been redesigned from scratch, an advanced regional pricing system and expanded bounty hunting with custom icons for posters have been added.
- Major overhauls of all the main factions (the Holy Nation, Shek, United Cities, Hivers, Tech Hunters, and others)
- Reworked combat and non-combat animations
- New factions with their own history, unique characters and locations (in development)
- New weapons and armor with rebalance, distributed across new factions
- Expanded fauna
- New and redesigned game starts
- New lore while maintaining the integrity of the original canon
Important about compatibility: the mod collection is not compatible with animation mods (More Combat Animation is already built-in), with mods for new races, with other major reworks (Genesis, UWE, Odyssey and others). Living World, Kaizo and Reactive World are also incompatible – their functions are partially already built into SLOFK.
For the mod collection to work, RE_Kenshi must be at least version 0.3.4. Installation instructions are posted in discussions and on Discord. For GOG users there is a separate version on Google Drive.
✅ SLOFK is the best option if you want to replay Kenshi in Russian with an active community and clear support. If a language barrier makes other large modpacks hard to navigate, this one solves that problem.
Чертов Kenshi: Vanilla HARDMOD+ Pack (UWE + Legendary)
Чертов Kenshi is a Russian modpack built around UWE and Kaizo, with Living World and Reactive World added as well. Its author presents it as the first stable combination of all four major world overhauls.
This collection is built for hardcore play. Ironman mode is enabled, removing the option to load a save during gameplay. If that is not your thing, simply remove its line from mods.cfg.
- All four major mods (UWE, Kaizo, Living World, Reactive World) work together without critical conflicts
- Large pack of animations (Great Anims, MCA, Grounded 2, Animation Overhaul) combined with 5 attack slots
- Optimization: Kenshi Shader Fix, Native Stylise, Compressed Textures Project, KPM + RWE + RPE
- New races: Dark Hive, Cute Hive, Oni
- Expanded Arsenal: Expanded Vanilla Armor, XBOW VARIANTS, Bounty Hunter Armor
- Reworked dialogues
- New dangerous creatures and factions (Waste Fiends, Iron Hounds)
- Construction Fixes: Slopeless, Building Collision Fix, Larger Player Base Area
The load order is available on GitHub as a ready-made mods.cfg — Copy the whole file to avoid arranging the mods manually. You will also find a full description of every mod in the collection there.
✅ If you want a Russian modpack with serious difficulty and full integration of UWE + Kaizo + Living World + Reactive World, Чертов Kenshi is currently the best option.
Recommendations for installing mods
Large Kenshi mod collections need a few basic tools from Nexus Mods. Their authors usually specify exactly what is required, so read the requirements carefully.
A few rules that work for any of the listed mod collections:
- Always import your game when starting with a new mod collection for the first time; otherwise, some changes will not take effect.
- Load order is critical. Large global modifications are usually placed at the end of the list.
- RE_Kenshi and Kenshi CTD Fix are needed for almost every setup, so install them whichever collection you choose.
- Particle System Override and Kenshi Performance Fix from SCARaw stabilize the game with a large number of mods.
- Kenshi Extension Plugin removes the need for NCE patches and expands the engine's capabilities.
- Disable the Steam overlay – this reduces the number of unexpected crashes.
- Graphics settings such as Low textures, Small Terrain Chunk Size, and disabled shadows can noticeably improve performance without a major loss in image quality.
If you are just starting to understand mods for Kenshi, take a look at the guide to installing modifications – it describes the procedure and typical mistakes when starting it for the first time.
Which Kenshi mod collection should you choose?
The right choice depends on what exactly you want from the game and how ready you are to deal with the installation.
For the most content without tracking down dozens of mods, MEGA Kaizo/UWE+ Modpack offers around 600 mods and a ready-made load order file. If staying true to the lore and having roleplaying mechanics matter more, Lore Friendly Role-Playing Experience balances scale with Kenshi's atmosphere and is an easier starting point.
If you want to replay Kenshi in Russian with an active community, SLOFK and Чертов Kenshi take different approaches: SLOFK focuses on custom content with strict compatibility limits, while Чертов Kenshi combines four major overhauls and adds a hardcore mode that prevents loading saves during play.
Genesis and UWE work best as foundations for a custom mod setup : you can add other mods on top with a lower risk of conflicts. Project Kathun — Clone Wars Era Conversion is a different proposition. If the Star Wars universe does not interest you, you do not need this collection.
If I missed a collection that deserves a place on this list, write to me. I will test it and add it if the modpack makes the cut.
