Conan Exiles
The Valley of the Lost Women
The setting of the game is simple. The protagonist, sentenced to death by Hyborian, is tied to a cross and left to die in the desert. After being hung briefly, they are suddenly saved by Conan himself; apparently, to somehow justify the name of the game, because the legendary barbarian will never appear again, but before you see the miraculous liberation, the game comes to an abrupt halt for character creation where you can choose your hero’s gender, race, appearance, and religion. After the creation of the hero, you are released into a seamless open world.
On a note, you can’t help but notice the nature of the editor in character creation. There is an option that allows you to the adjust the size of genitalia and other intimate body parts of the lousily voiced protagonist. While this can be seen as a quirky aspect of the game, with many other things lacking and this only being a catchy superficial detail, it ends up feeling like an attempt to grab more attention.
There is no tutorial in Conan Exiles. You will have to learn everything through trial and error. In a strict sense of the word, the game has no quests whatsoever. However, there are goals that are shown on the upper right corner of the screen. These help you get acquainted with the basics of the game.
Treasures of Gwalure
Crafting is an important aspect of the game, and the players will have to mess around with a lot of ingredients for that. At first, it will just be simple materials stones and branches, then you will need rarer resources like: stellar metallic ore, or the blood of a demon. In search of these ingredients, you will have to traverse many beautiful locations - deserts, jungles, snow-covered valleys, swamps, and even a volcano. Unfortunately, the collection of resources is somewhat tiring. Useful materials are hard to find, and instead of getting to admire the scenery of Hyboria, you will mostly be busy cutting down trees, breaking stones, and hunting animals.
The tools used change what exact resource you will be getting. For instance, if you chop the tree with an axe, there will be some wood, and if you prick the tree with a pick, the bark. The character needs to drink and eat, so as not to die of hunger and thirst. You need to hunt animals for food. And for complete safety, you will want to build a house or even a fortress of your dreams if you are feeling up for it. You can also climb steep cliffs and cook on a bowler hat, something that’s reminiscent of last year’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. That’s where you are brought back to ground with naked bodies and a game that doesn’t play at all like BotW.
Religion is an important mechanics in the game. Belonging to the confession provides unique equipment recipes, sacrifices allow you to invoke the huge all-destroying avatar of the chosen god. When you start off, the game lets you worship only one deity, but their numbers can be increased later in the game. I'm not a bore, but where is it seen in Hyboria that the minions of Seth, whose teachings completely contradict each other, simultaneously give praise to the solar miter!
Another notable mechanics of the game, a quite unusual one, is slavery. In order to get yourself a slave, you need to trash the enemy before they lose consciousness, then tie them and make them rotate the wheel of pain. It works the same way as it does in Conan’s film. The system of slavery is needed for proper organization and development of economy. A warrior slave can be made to guard the house, the smith slave will make an improved weapon, and the dancers take care of the filth that can be picked up in the ancient ruins.
All the rascals in the house
Conan Exiles has several modes - PvP (each player was removed from the cross personally by Conan!), online PvE and a singleplayer campaign. The game is punishing; you can die very quickly. The maximum number of players on a server is 40. Although the true potential of the game is reached in multiplayer, the singleplayer campaign is also good - you can play only for that.
After you die, experience gained and skills learned do not disappear, but the character literally starts with a bare back and only items in the chests are not lost. That is, of course, if you are not playing the campaign on easy difficulty level. In addition to that, you have to start with character creation every time you join a new server in multiplayer, which is really annoying.
There have been a number of impressive changes after the release, including, but not limited to, an increase in the number of resources, recipes, and monsters. The devs have also added new animations, deities, and biomes. The game has come really far from when it was first released in early access in early 2017. Taking a year and a half for full release from early access worked for the sandbox survival game Conan Exiles, but there are still some quality of life and game balance issues that need to be fixed. The game doesn’t quite capture the feel of the mystical world of Conan: The Barbarian, so it may be the cause of disappointment for fans of franchise, but it is still a solid survival game. Recommended for fans of survival genre.
Rating: 8/10
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Graphics
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Game Lore
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Easy to Learn
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Open World
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Some Bugs
