Co-op in Kenshi: How to Play Multiplayer with Friends

Kenshi is one of those games that eventually makes you think, "Wouldn't it be great to play through this with a friend?" Spoiler: there is no official multiplayer, there never has been, and the chances of it appearing are close to zero. But that isn't the end of the story.

In this Kenshi multiplayer guide, we'll look at why that is, how you can still play co-op with friends, and whether there's any point in hoping for co-op in Kenshi 2. Everything else about the game, including mods and guides, is on the main Kenshi page.

Does Kenshi Have Multiplayer or Co-op?

No. And that doesn't mean "not yet": it's an architectural decision made when the engine was being developed. Chris Hunt built Kenshi as a single-player game, and its engine reflects that choice. The official forum response is clear: adding co-op to the current build would mean throwing out the entire game and starting again. Those are the developer's own words, rather than an interpretation.

Why Kenshi has no co-op or multiplayer:

• Kenshi's engine uses Ogre3D with custom modules chosen for a single-player game
• Those modules have no underlying networking code, so there's literally nothing to build on
• Adding multiplayer through a mod isn't possible either: modders can't access the engine layer where that work would need to happen
• Other games gained co-op or multiplayer through mods because their engines already had that functionality, with it simply disabled. Kenshi has no such functionality in the first place
• The only option is to rewrite the game from scratch, as the developer explicitly confirmed (and, of course, nobody is going to do that)

Kenshi-Online: A Multiplayer Co-op Mod for 16 Players

Here's where things get more interesting. A kind soul on GitHub, The404Studios , released Kenshi-Online, a working co-op mod for 16 players. This isn't a concept or an abandoned repository: version v1.0.2 came out in March 2026, with fixes for crashes when loading zones.

How did they manage that if the engine doesn't support multiplayer? Through Ogre plugin injection. The mod changes Plugins_x64.cfg to add its own DLL, which the engine loads at startup. It all uses Ogre3D's built-in plugin mechanism, which was already used by the RE_Kenshi reverse-engineering project.

What gets synchronized between players:

1. Character positions and animations
2. NPC states through a zone-based system
3. Combat, including damage and deaths
4. Building construction and destruction
5. Items and inventory
6. Time of day and game speed

A 20 Hz tick rate and interpolation with a 100 ms buffer : for Kenshi, that sounds surprisingly decent.

Tick rate is how often the server updates the world state and sends it to players. 20 Hz means 20 times per second.

Interpolation with a 100 ms buffer keeps movement from looking jerky between those updates: the client stays slightly behind the server and smoothly fills in character positions between packets.

How to install the Kenshi multiplayer mod:

1. Download KenshiMP-Install.zip from the Releases page
2. Extract it into your Kenshi folder: Steam/steamapps/common/Kenshi/
3. Run KenshiMP.Injector.exe from the client folder
4. Enter your name and the server IP, then press PLAY

To host your own server, run KenshiMP.Server.exe from Steam/steamapps/common/Kenshi/server. The developers' English-language guide explains the server setup in detail.

You'll also need a VPS (virtual private server). You can get one from AdminVPS with a 60% discount using my promo code DafyAdminVPS . A VPS has uses beyond Kenshi, if you know what I mean… 🙂

💡 Important: other players' characters don't appear instantly. You need to approach a town or a group of NPCs to trigger NPC creation through the game's native events. The initial spawn can take up to 30 seconds: that's an architectural choice for engine compatibility.

A Co-op Mod on the Steam Workshop

While we're talking about multiplayer, we have to mention Pig Master's Working Kenshi "Co-op" mod, which appeared on the Steam Workshop on April 1, 2024.

The author clarified that the release date was "definitely just a coincidence." Its 25,000 unique visitors and 346 subscribers suggest people either believed it or appreciated the joke. Most likely both at once 🙂

Will Kenshi 2 Have Multiplayer?

Kenshi 2 originally used the same engine, OGRE, retaining the same foundation with an upgraded renderer. However, in 2023 it was announced that the game was moving to Unreal Engine 5. There is still no official information about multiplayer support. Kenshi 2 will most likely remain a single-player game, just with better graphics and performance.

Kenshi Multiplayer: Where Things Stand

There is no official multiplayer, and there won't be: the engine can't support it without a complete overhaul. The404Studios' Kenshi-Online is currently the only working option in active development. Co-op support is unlikely to be any different in Kenshi 2.

If you want to play with friends right now, the mod is your only option, and it works better than you might expect from a game that was never designed for multiplayer.