Firstly I’d just like to make it known that I know nothing
about Conan the Barbarian, despite the character and his world being around
since 1932 in various books, TV, and films, my only knowledge of it is that it
made Arnold Schwarzenegger’s acting career when he starred as the title role in
the 1984 film classic, I think the closest I’ve come is playing the Sega
classic Golden Axe on the Mega Drive.
What I have since learnt, Conan is a chivalrous,
intelligent, muscular mountain of a man, a respected warrior and leader of men,
who is not one to stay in any singular place for too long, eager to travel the
world he inhabits and aspiring to loftier ambitions than that of his blacksmith
father, and this was all I could gather from a surface-scan of Fandom and
Wikipedia, I didn’t dare delve too deeply into the lore or 80+ years of stories
and media, else I’d have had no time to play or review this game.
Conan Exiles originally launched on Steam Early Access in
January 2017, an open-world survival game set in the brutal lands of our
previously mentioned barbarian, selling half a million copies in its first
thirty days, progressing and growing from containing just one area of
exploration to four, a handful of resources, weapons and armour became
hundreds, and even thousands of crafting recipes becoming available to the
player, a title that was previously viewed as perhaps too ambitious was
actually coming to fruition, and it’s now reached its official release on PC,
XBOX One and PS4.
The game opens with a character creator, picking between a
male or female character, you can then choose race, religion, height, hair
style, facial features, the whole shebang, and depending on how much nudity you
prefer in your games, you can alter the levels from none, to partial, to full, basically
meaning that partial will show anything above the waist, and full shows you the
rest, this may not sound all that important, but with full nudity on, that is
exactly what you get.
Among the customisation options are sliders for physique,
and breast size, and if creating a male character, endowment, this is where the
nudity options make all the difference, if the option is on full you will be
greeted with the sight of a fully-fledged penis and testicles, which, depending
on where on the endowment slider your cursor lies, can either be an inoffensive
nubbin to a baby’s arm of an appendage, which hilariously will flap in the
breeze as your character hangs on their cross.
I, of course chose to model my character on myself, average
height, medium build, stern but appealing facial features, with genitalia
capable of tripping over passers-by if incorrectly stowed-away, and finally
once completed, it is revealed what crimes your character may or may not have
committed to wind up crucified in the first place, but by a stroke of luck
Conan shows up and helps you down, noticing the mysterious bracelet on your
wrist, he comments that unless you can survive long enough to remove it, you’ll
never leave the exiled lands.
He leaves and you’re left all on your lonesome with barely a
scrap of clothing to your name, you initially wander the desert with the
minimum of guidance, brief objectives hinting what next to do on your journey
and a degraded stone path ahead of you, interacting with your surroundings will
give you materials for crafting and small items for nourishment, scavenging
enough will eventually mean you can make yourself some basic clothing, weapons
and tools.
Primarily your concerns are staving off hunger and thirst,
but as you explore you encounter a wide array of wild creatures and even wilder
tribes, 99% of these will try to attack you, and if you’re not suitably versed
in defending yourself yet, your best bet is to beat a hasty retreat, whilst the
combat is fairly straight forward, with a basic and special attack, and dodge
available to you, blocking is best saved when you have something to block an
attack with, it is very easy to find yourself overwhelmed by attackers and more
often than not, low on stamina.
Luckily fighting, crafting and ticking off items on your
journey list provide experience points to level up your character, and with
each increase in level you are given points to assign to various attributes,
Agility, Strength, Encumbrance and so on, you’re also awarded knowledge points
in your Feats collection, Feats are a selection of categories available for
crafting, and unlocking new options within these grants you more items to
craft, Construction will give you buildings and shelter, Survival lets you
create tools for harvesting, or recipes for food and medicinal items, and
Weapons grants a wider variety of anything sharp and pointy to poke enemies
with.
Basic swords, bows and shields can be made yourself with
most stuff you can scrape together, but as you wander the exiled lands, the
wildlife and various tribes you encounter grow stronger, and there’s only so
far your basic armoury can go, build yourself a small settlement, throw
together a blacksmith’s bench and you’ll be granted access to crafting higher
spec blades and axes, want even better equipment? Find yourself a Thrall and
capture them to use them at your Blacksmith’s or Armorer's Bench, have them
defend your encampment from attackers, or simply have them dance for you.
Thralls are not the only NPC’s you’ll meet along
the way, some locations will be home to merchants or religious types, talking
to these can provide you with new crafting options, quests, and the possibility
of trading for supplies, it always pays to be cautious however, most people
you’ll meet will want to do you harm, and being ill-prepared for a situation
could lead to a swift demise, which, depending on the level of difficulty
you’ve set, could mean the loss of every item you’ve gathered up until that
point, stopping to set up camp can mean the difference between death being a
minor inconvenience or rendering your last few hours of play-time completely
useless.
You start your survival in a barren and inhospitable
dessert, dilapidated stone structures and sparse areas of vegetation are home
to small tribes, and the occasional crocodile or hippo, venturing further north
across the river, you’ll enter a vast jungle and eventually the Highlands,
encountering tougher enemies, caves, and ancient temples, and if that’s not
enough, ascending further still you’ll climb snowy mountains and bleak chasms, wolves,
mammoths, and the plunging temperature will each bringing your adventure to a
swift halt if you fail to prepare, and all this will seem like a walk in the
park as you get closer to the enormous foreboding volcano that looms in the
distance.
The variety in each biome lead to some highly detailed and
lush environments, vast landscapes scattered with unique flora and fauna,
mountain ranges, and large rippling bodies of water surrounded by grazing
creatures, makeshift camps, and ancient ruins to explore, the sheer size and
scale of Conan Exiles is astounding at times, you’re free to go wherever you
please, and providing you’ve enough stamina, you can climb most surfaces,
possibly rewarding you with some rare crafting materials or an easily
overpowered tribe of NPCs to drag back to camp, and definitely rewarding you
with a great view as you plan the next step of your journey.
Some of the vistas you can take in are beautiful and
initially the enormity can be a little daunting, and rightly so, building your
character and skills takes time, and whilst you’re granted extra skills with
every new experience level you reach, being able to stomp into a new region to
gather fresh resources, discover and learn about more tribes and religions, and
carve your way through its inhabitants is often reward enough, being able to go
against stronger enemies with ease, deflecting strikes with your shield, or
crippling them from afar with a bow before going for the kill.
Survival in Conan Exiles requires patience and
work, getting to grips with balancing your hunger and thirst, figuring out the
harvesting and crafting systems, as well as learning to make the best of the
clunky combat system, even the basics here aren’t easy, and as much as the game
eases you into it, it doesn’t guide you as well as it should, luckily you don’t
have to do it alone, take your character online and forge an alliance, work
together with friends to build whole communities, or if you’re feeling lucky,
rally the troops and try your luck against the world, the whole experience is
up to how you want to play it, problem is that most of the other people you
meet will generally be hostile, which means unless you’ve got already
established friendships, it’s kill or be killed, well he was never known as
Conan the Friendly was he?