Kenshi has a lot of depth for a visually very simplistic RPG. You could just roam the wastes and scavenge your way to independence. You might also have ambitions of joining a particular faction and telling your own take on their story. Building your own faction might be another goal you have in the game. Kenshi is a very unforgiving game. Getting to the point where you can reliably build and expand your own settlement is a major hassle. As you expand your fledgling empire into the wastes, there are many things you can do to earn Cats and keep the materials flowing. It’s a constant struggle to obtain resources, and you need a way to bring in new supplies.
To do that, you also need to venture out into the wastes and scavenge. Materials are kind of hard to come by in the post-apocalypse, it turns out. When you’re out adventuring, you’re probably going to get into combat. And sometimes, that combat will involve one or more of the larger factions in Kenshi. These groups don’t take too kindly to attacks on their members, and will slap a bounty on your head. Here are some tips for how to deal with a Bounty in Kenshi.
How to Get Rid of a Bounty in Kenshi
When you engage in combat, if you’re the aggressor, you’re probably going to end up with a bounty. They might also happen if you’re caught stealing from a person or building within that faction’s territory.
If you are unsure whether your character has a bounty on their head, just select them within the group and then you will see a bounty marker in the bottom-left of the UI. You can hover over this bounty to see what the cause is, and how long it will stay active. If it’s a low-level crime such as theft, it will usually expire in a few days. The time will be listed on the bounty when you hover over it. You can simply return to your own settlement, or buy a house in friendly territory, then lay low for a bit. After the bounty expires, you’re free to return to the source faction, provided they aren’t openly hostile to you.
Don’t worry too much if you get a bounty from a hostile faction, as they tend to attack you even without the bounty active. For example, my current save is a Shek Kingdom ally run where I’ve been clearing out bandits and attacking Holy Nation settlements. The characters I have often out doing the hard work of raiding settlements and assassinating leaders is a dedicated and heavily trained squad of my best fighters. They tend to accrue bounties from the Holy Nation pretty regularly.
In the above example, this bounty won’t expire. You will have to go with another option to get rid of it. Another thing you can do to get rid of your bounty immediately is to actually turn the character in. You need to head to the jailer for the faction that issued the bounty and speak with the correct NPC. This will often be the NPC that you turn NPC bounties in to. From there, just choose to either serve time or pay off the bounty.
What about mods?
There are mod-based solutions for bounties on your characters out there. The Steam Workshop has one mod that you can use to spend 10,000 Cats on a surgery to remove Bounties from a character. This is useful for when a hostile faction has a ton of expensive bounties on you. This is an obviously immersion-breaking solution, so take that into account. It’s also worth noting that this solution won’t work for existing save games. You will need to do a save import, or you risk bugs cropping up and ruining your existing save.
That’s all you need to know about how to handle a Bounty in Kenshi. There are plenty more guides where those came from. You might also want to check out our guide on Shek Kingdom states, if you plan to play with that faction.
