I'll confess, before I played Conan Exiles I had never watched Conan or read anything by Robert E. Howard. But afterwards, I was compelled to learn more about Howard's harsh, Lovecraftian world. I watched the movie with Schwarzeneggar, and then picked up a giant Conan compilation book, and became enthralled with the odd, dark, gritty, and oftentimes cheesy fantasy world.
Conan Exiles is the latest game by Funcom, who seemed to be trying to take advantage of their Conan license to jump on the survival game trend. They had previously made the game Age of Conan, an MMO that ended up not being very successful.
A Conan game does seem more suited to the survival genre, with its brutality and dog-eat-dog aesthetic. I first started out in 2017 playing Early Access, but stopped due to the lack of content and bugginess. I returned to the game in 2018 when 1.0 was released.
The game starts out with you having been left to die, crucified and naked, for various petty crimes. You're released by a mysterious stranger (Spoiler alert: It's Conan) and must then make your way out of a desolate desert to some place of safety. However soon you find that nowhere in the world is safe. Hostile humans, monsters, environmental hazards, and possibly other players roam the world. Also you must find something to drink and eat, and clothes to cover your body, or risk death by starvation, thirst, or exposure.
You must forge crude weapons out of rock and branches, and tools to chop down trees and break rocks. You use a pallet to sleep, which means that if you end up dying you'll be resurrected there. Then you need to build a home to protect yourself once you log out, because your body remains but you become unconscious.
After you've got enough resources, you'll want to find thralls. There are fighters, workers, and dancer thralls that perform various tasks. You'll need a truncheon to beat them unconscious, then a rope to bring back home. After that, you place them in a wheel to break them.
I thought this was a weird part of Conan Exiles, as Conan himself hates slavery. And although you get bonuses from having thrall workers, right now it doesn't feel like an integral part of the game.
You can also do other things like build altars to your gods, build a giant map for teleportation, fight bosses in dungeons, and slaughter all who oppose you.
There is a story to follow, but it' scattered throughout the land, through various books of lore and rocks etched with an ancient language. The main quest seems to be about breaking the bracelet that binds you to the land, but the "reward" for doing this is permadeath. (Not sure what the designers were thinking with that one, unless they just wanted to contribute to the gritty atmosphere of Conan). Most of your time will probably be spent building your kingdom designed to serve a creepy snake god.
However, Funcom still has a lot of work to do, and the game doesn't feel like it should be 1.0 The game is still buggy - auto-targeting is awful and the thrall system feels fundamentally broken. I'm hoping it'll be fixed in future updates.
But what Conan Exiles does well is atmosphere. Exploration, atmosphere, dungeons, and the landscape are all excellent. The map is huge and varied, and going out to explore really feels like I'm really going out on an adventure. They introduced climbing, so you can scale giant cliffs, towers, and walls. The dungeons actually feel like dungeons, instead of grind fests, and most of them have rewards such as new recipes you can craft. Oftentimes I'd go out to search for resources, and end up going on a grand adventure where I killed a Witch Queen and carved her heart out.
If exploration and the dark atmosphere of Conan is your thing, I'd recommend this game, and I still have high hopes for it in the future. But keep in mind that the game definitely needs work, and there are better options out there both for PvP and base-building games.