Conan Exiles: Survive, Thrive, Conquer

I’m a huge fan of Conan. I’ve read almost every issue of Weird Tales he appeared in. I’ve watched the movie. Hell, I’ve even read the comics.

Despite being a massive fan of the character, I was hesitant when I first heard about Conan: Exiles- after all, it was another survival game in a market oversaturated with them. So I didn’t purchase it. Years passed, and I eventually saw that it was on sale. On a whim, I purchased the game.

I did not regret it.

Conan Exiles is a game with surprising depth, but there are many things that could discourage a new player: The map is massive, but set and unchanging. The movement, at least at first, feels somewhat clunky and unresponsive. The UI is somewhat simplistic outside of the menus, and can be somewhat hard to navigate at first. Worst of all, it’s pretty badly optimized, meaning that frame rates can be inconsistent unless you’ve either got a powerful rig or low settings.

Still, once you manage to get past its initial hurdles, Conan: Exiles is a hell of a game.

You start as a no-name exile with nothing left to your name- just the bare minimum to maintain your decency. If you’ve got nudity enabled, you don’t even have that. You’ve been crucified, left to die in the wastes for such crimes as banditry, breaking an oath, and… poor use of punctuation? Yes, this is a crime that your character can have randomly assigned as the reason for being left to die. It’s a little thing, and it’s never brought up again, but it’s the first sign that you get that this game was a labor of love.

You are, in fact, freed by Conan himself… who then leaves you to die, walking face-first into a sandstorm like it’s no big deal. What a badass. In any case, you’re stranded in the middle of the desert, with only a single, poorly made road leading you to anything resembling safety. The first sign of life you see after being freed from your bonds is a giant bat that screeches at you before flying away.

If you can’t tell already, these lands are harsh and unforgiving. Still, with time and effort, they can be mastered.

It’s at this point that I’d like to mention Conan: Exiles’ combat system. It’s fairly simplistic, swapping to a third person perspective when equipping a weapon and allowing for light and heavy attacks, as well as combinations between the two for damage and status effects. There’s also a dodge, and a blocking button if you have a shield. It’s not the deepest system around, but it’s actually surprisingly deep for a game of this genre, and it’s damn fun to master it and actually face your enemies in style instead of kiting them and whacking them like in most other survival games.

In addition, while construction is technically block based, there is significantly more freedom when it comes to placement and usage. If you put in the time, you can build massive, elaborate constructions built into the side of a mountain, something that is made much easier with the addition of a climbing mechanic, allowing you to eventually climb up those sheer rock faces even burdened by armor and with your bare hands. You can even make siege equipment to go along with this theme. However, this comes at the cost of reshaping your environment- you trade freedom of placement for a rigid landscape that cannot be molded nearly as freely as that of, say, Minecraft or 7 Days to Die.

This is not a bad thing, and it really doesn’t impact gameplay much, but it may be a turn-off for some. Speaking of the landscape, Conan Exiles is absolutely gorgeous.

From the simple map screen to the sights themselves, Conan: Exiles has a startling beauty to it, with every biome not only feeling unique, but having their own sort of charm. Simply taking the time to look around from time to time is enough to take one’s breath away at certain points.

Couple this with an absolutely amazing soundtrack that captures the feeling of roaming and challenging the lands, and you’ve got a superb example of how to get a player invested in the map that they explore and create upon.

Still, once you’ve hit the level cap and created an unbreakable fortress, there’s still more to do: specifically, along with simply exploring and discovering new places and recipes, you can capture and “recruit” (see: enslave) thralls to help automate things at your base. If that isn’t enough, there’s always the option of killing a Dragon.. Or the Barrow King. Or a massive frost giant.

Yeah, that’s right. There are bosses in this game, and all of them are freaking awesome. They require plenty of prep (and ideally a buddy or two) to take on, and give massive rewards if you manage to actually slay them. They’re a proper challenge, even for the most hardened warriors, and provide even more potential variety and game time for those who aren’t satisfied with building alone.

On top of all of that, the game is still constantly receiving updates, and it even has mod support- allowing for custom animations, models, items, and all manner of additions to the game when it finally loses some of that initial luster.

So, how about it? Ready to step down from that cross and onto the sands, Exile?