Developed by Funcom, Conan Exiles is one of the newest addition to the Survival game genre. Following the footsteps of titles such as ARK Survival Evolved and Forest, Conan Exiles puts players in the shoes of an exile banished to the edge of a wasteland filled with ferocious beasts and angry cannibals.
First lets talk about what makes Conan Exiles different from the previous survival games. Conan Exiles is based of the world of Conan the Barbarian. Unlike most games, when players create their characters, a different randomized back story is given to make players really connect with their characters. Unfortunately for me, my character seems to have some questionable preferences…
Players start off at the very edge of the map and is prompted to "follow the road", so instead of giving players the freedom to explore the world right off the bat, Conan Exiles sets the scene a little before thrusting them into the great open world.
Another somewhat unique aspect of Conan Exiles is character development. Although it features a system that closely resembles ARK, in which players level up through doing certain actions and at each level can increase a stat of their choice and learn recipes etc., the game does feel more objective orientated in a way which players can really focus on what they want to do first. Players who wants to put settling down as first priority can opt to learn specific skills that unlocks crafting building materials first before learning how to make stronger and better armors and weapons. This does create a sort of class system when playing with friends, giving players a specific role of their choice (should they want to).
The building system in the game is definitely worth a praise, once you start diving into it. Angled building pieces allows players to really build what’s on their mind with ease. With the ability to build on the side of cliffs, players who play online can really use their environment to their advantage to prevent players from intruding easily.
As to some of the downfalls of the game. The game boasts a number of fascinating features from enslaving NPC to do your bidding to summoning giant avatars to destroy player-built cities which is normally a good thing; however, unless you join a guild with a significant amount of players, most of these features will require players to be very deep into the game. For the casual gamer who doesn’t invest a lot of time in the game, Conan Exiles is really nothing special when you compare it to ARK which lets you tame dinosaurs with just berries the very moment you start!
Currently the game is still in Early Access, so having bugs and glitches is understandable, but the graphics of the game isn’t something that seems particularly promising for 2017. Still, keeping in mind that the game is in Early Access, one can still hope that developers will continue to brush up on the graphics before the full release.
Final Thoughts
As a conclusion, yes the game does have unique features that makes it stand out in the market, but the fact that too much time is required to get to it makes it quite unfriendly to casual gamers. The game does seem intended for online multiplayer, so those who prefer to play alone will really not have much to do.
For those who are into multiplayer survival games, the game is definitely worth a try. A new unique building system to play around with and promising combat mechanics makes Conan Exiles a great game to play online. Although servers may not be very stable, Conan Exiles can still guarantee many hours of enjoyable gameplay.