Obsessed with Conan Exiles!

by Cliff Hamrick

Conan Exiles has been a bit of an obsession of mine since it was first released in 2018. I didn’t play it much back then because there wasn’t a lot to do and there was no tutorial nor any online resources to help play the game. It often became a frustrating experience of trial and error as I figured out a few things until I finally gave up and moved on to something easier.

That all changed several months ago with the release of Age of Sorcery, which introduced magic into the game. It was a huge update to the game and brought in tons of new players. I decided to give it a try again, and I’ve been playing nothing else ever since.

What Is Conan Exiles?

Conan Exiles, produced by Funcom, is an open-world survival game. These are games in which the character is plopped into a vast world with nothing more than the clothes on their back. (And in Conan Exiles, you may not even have that.)

Survival games are not easy, and to be honest, Conan Exiles is one of the hardest of them all. This has gotten better thanks to recent updates, but when first starting the game, you will die a lot. Ever had a mountain goat headbutt you to death? Well, that can happen in this game.

Combat is fast and deadly. In the beginning, you will have nothing in the way of armor and you’ll be fighting with stone weapons. Luckily the game does a good job of easing you into the world by giving you opponents that aren’t much better off than you are. As you go up in level, you’ll be able to raise your attributes which will give you bonuses to your health and damage, as well as other aspects of gameplay.

Survival is the first order of business as a new character. Everything in the game wants to kill you. You have to gather food, drink water, deal with the elements, and even hide from monstrous sandstorms. You’ll deal with all of these problems by gathering up materials, using them to make weapons, craft tools, and build a shelter. Everything is useful in the beginning including the sticks you pick up off the ground. But as you play, you get experience points which can be put into knowledges which let you build new and better items. Eventually, survival doesn’t seem so dire.

The open-world of Conan Exiles means you get to play however you want. There are no classes in the game. You just acquire attribute and skill points and spend them however you want. Powerful warriors in heavy armor are just as viable as agile fighters in light armor. Or be an agile fighter in heavy armor. Archery is also a part of the game. You can even have thralls and pets do the fighting for you. And, if you go the route of sorcery, you can raise zombies or summon demons to fight for you as well.

System requirements

Conan Exiles can run on a PC, PS 4 & 5, or Xbox One. I have only played on a PC, so I can’t speak to the experience of console play. But I can say that the game is a beast on PC. Here are the system requirements taken from the Steam Store Page:

There are ways to mitigate the strain the game can put on a computer. First, just play a solo game from your PC rather than logging into an online server. Also, turn the video graphics display down. Even at it’s lowest setting, Conan Exiles is still a beautiful game.

Getting Started

If you’re playing on a PC, then to get started, the first thing you’ll need to do is download the game. I use Steam for all my games, so I would just type in ‘Conan Exiles’ into their search engine and start there. You’ll notice a few things come up with the game. These are extra DLC packs that you can buy that add more cosmetics to the game without changing actual gameplay.

As of the writing of this article, the standard edition of the game sells for $39.99 USD. Sometimes there is a sale and you can get it cheaper than that. Once you pay your money, it should download the game including all the latest updates. This will take a while, so I start the download just as I’m going to bed and let it run while I sleep.

Once you get into the game, the first screen you’ll see asks you to choose the gender of your character. This has no impact on gameplay and is just purely for cosmetics. Once you make your choice, the camera will zoom in a person crucified on a cross. Nice way to start.

While hanging there, you can choose from one of the races described by Robert E Howard. Again, this is purely cosmetic. A Stygian can be just as big and burly as a Cimmerian. Then you’ll choose your religion. This actually affects gameplay as this will be religion you will start with which will let you build a shrine which will allow you to build some of the things that will help you survive. Different shrines build different items.

After that, the other choices change the appearance of your character including your height. Also, you can change up your sexual characteristics. Yes, that’s right. You can have gigantic boobs or a huge schlong, if you’re into that. Conan Exiles allows for full nudity, which is why it’s rated M. That and the blood, but we’ll talk more about that during the section on combat.

Once you finalize your character, including your name, then you’ll be plopped onto an ancient road in the middle of a desert. For a long time, that was it. You just had to run around and figure stuff out on your own. But, Funcom recently added an expanded Journey System that will give you a short-term goal to help guide you through the sort of things you’ll need to do to survive in the game (gather resources, make items, build structures, and fight enemies).

Gameplay

Being an open world, you can play the game in multiple ways. Some people really like building large or complex structures, such as castles, fighting arenas, wizard towers, or small villages. With all of the different building materials and motifs in the game, you can spend your whole time just playing architect. There are many channels on YouTube dedicated to building in Conan Exiles.

Exploration is also a big part of the game. Unlike with many MMORPGs, there are no guides in the game. No random NPC is going to tell you to go to Goldshire and drop off a bundle of furs at his cousin’s shop. In Conan Exiles, you just head off in a direction without any real idea of what you’ll find, and just hope you don’t die along the way. While out adventuring, you might find an ancient dungeon, powerful creatures, or small towns of hostile inhabitants. You might find recipes to craft new weapons, boxes of treasure or supplies, or pick up powerful items.

You may also find hints of the history of the Exile Lands. There are storylines in the game that explain what the lands are, who created the ancient structures, and the interactions with the various people in the region. It’s like moving to a new country. It was there before you and it has a history that you can discover.

Combat

Of course, no Conan game would be complete without combat, and Conan Exiles delivers. As you play the game, you will fight against beasts, humans, undead, and monsters. Each kind of their own weaknesses and abilities that forces you to figure out different tactics to defeat them.

There are a wide variety of weapons in the game and each one is based on a different attribute and has different uses in the game. A pair of daggers is going to be best for an agility-based based fighter who dodges a lot and causes his enemies to slowly bleed to death. A two-handed hammer is best for a strength-based fight who will smash through his enemy’s armor, albeit slowly. Spears, axes, bows, and swords are all available. Fight with two hands or one hand. Hell, you can even punch your opponent’s to death in the early game.

Combat is fast and dynamic. If you just stand in one spot and smash buttons, you’ll just get clobbered. You enemies can knock you down, toss you around, poison you, or sunder your armor. You have to be ready for all of it. But when you finally do defeat your opponent, expect a fountain of blood. Characters don’t just lay down like they’re falling asleep nor do they quietly fade out. Instead, heads and limbs fly away in a gush of blood with cries of pain. Perfect for a sword and sorcery game.

Game Modes

There are multiple ways to play the game. First, you can run it as a single-player game from your computer where you have complete control over the difficulty of the game. You can set how long the day/night cycle is, the strength of your opponents, crafting speed, etc. You can even enter ‘creative mode’ in which the creatures of the game will ignore you and you have an infinite amount of crafting materials so you can build and decorate to your heart’s content without interruption.

If you want to play on a server (or run your own server), then you can choose player vs environment (PVE) or player vs player (PVP). In a PVE server, players cannot attack each other, they cannot steal from each other, nor can they damage each other’s buildings. In a PVP server, anything goes. Players attack each other, take each other’s equipment, and even raid bases.

There is a third option called player vs environment-conflict (PVE-C). Usually these servers are PVE except during certain times set by the server administrators. This is a good balance for players who want a little bit PVP but don’t want to have to deal with it every time they log on.

Recommendations

If all of this has gotten you interested in the game, but you’re not sure how to start out, then I recommend starting slow. The game has a steep learning curve. It’s not a steep as it once was, but there is still a lot to learn about the game. I’ve been playing for years, and I’m still discovering new things.

So, first, get the game and just play it single-player for a little while. You will have the whole world to yourself without having to worry about competing with other players for space or resources. You won’t have anyone to help you out, but I’ve provided a list of good online resources where you can find help.

Once you get a feel for the game, then try out a PVE server. There are some that are more focused on roleplay (RP) where characters are required to have names that fit within the Hyborian Age so you shouldn’t have to deal with a character named ‘n00bblaster5000’. But people who search out those servers are usually more interested in playing the game and are more likely to help you get started.

Of course, if you love the competition, then try out a PVP server. Lots of people play the game just to fight against other players rather than the AI of the computer, which can get rather predictable.

Online Resources
Conan Exiles wiki: https://conanexiles.fandom.com/wiki/Conan_Exiles_Wiki
Eradicati0n YT: https://www.youtube.com/@Eradicati0nn
KiahOnFire YT: https://www.youtube.com/@KiahOnFireOfficial
Pixelcave YT: https://www.youtube.com/@Pixelcave

About Me

As well as being a counselor in private practice in Austin, TX, I am also a writer. I create short stories and novels of sword and sorcery fantasy, mystery, with elements of horror. I just released a collection of short stories featuring Jarek the Scholar. I describe him as part Indiana Jones and part Phillip Marlowe in a Conan the Barbarian setting. Please follow this link (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Cliff-Hamrick/author/B081X9QZLC) to my Author Page on Amazon to check out my stories!