Conan Exiles (2018)

Got this for free a few years back and played through it with a friend. Gameplay was pretty basic and easy to get in to if you already play these types of titles, and we progressed fairly fast in terms of level, supplies and weaponry, and it was fun exploring the vast map and different areas to clear bosses and collect rare items. At the end of the day Conan Exiles is very basic and flawed throughout the experience and not really worth your time..unless you're some kind of extraordinarely rare Conan enthusiast.

[2.4] / [5]

Current Playthrough: ~40 Hours with about ~80 hours logged in the game (including ~40 hours in 2018. Dedicated Server hosted and managed by me.

Conan Exiles is a fun game with some great ideas that ultimately is undercooked even after all these years.

Pros:

• Freedom. I liked the openness of this game. The multiple build options and thrall gameplay was actually fairly enjoyable.
• Build options are good. Want to build a small outpost? Done. Want to build a warriors keep? Tools are there. Want to build an age of Conan strip club? You do you do.
• Accessible through difficulty settings and if you want or don’t want nudity, feel free to toggle it.
• Journeys are a great way to get familiar with the game and a perfect checklist for newer players.
• Good value for base game. Even when the mid-late game kind of falls flat.

Cons:

• Buggy AF. There’s something satisfying about dragging your unconscious thrall behind you back to your torture wheel but look back too long and the wonky physics will straight up crash your game. Bosses not responding properly, enemies forgetting to fight, getting hurt for stupid reasons.
• If you’re not going to program a competent interaction with NPCs, maybe don’t make them close together. Friendly NPCs often sit amongst the hostile ones making for a cluster f*** of gameplay. Case-in-point look at the primary friendly npc city, there are a bunch of bandits in it, if they attack you all the friendly npcs will go full hostile.
• Combat sucks. It really, really sucks. It’s so bad. Unfortunately, this is the largest deficit, and because it sucks, when you get to the point of the game where it’s all pretty much combat, the game grinds to a halt.
• Mid game recipes for armor and weapons don’t feel like much of an upgrade.
• The leveling system needs options such as an ability to adjust max level. Not being able to finish all trees forcing you to respec occasionally kinda seems pointless in a game with robust admin controls.
• The campaign is confusing and most forums I read on don’t even recommend finishing it. The story isn’t hard to follow, but determining what boss arenas are up next in line with a goal to “beat” the game is.
• Microtransactions and battle pass. BARF

Conclusion:

Play at your own risk. If a survival/craft/base building game is your cup of tea, this game might feel built for you. If you are big into games on servers with strangers who can grief you and you them, this game will have some appeal. The combat though won’t let me give this game anything above a 3 star. I still enjoy and may continue playing to try and finish the main quest, and again, I may never log back in.

I grow a little sick and tired of the same concept over and over again. After I got bored out of my freaking mind with Atlas, Ark, Minecraft, Valheim and many more, someone recommended Conan Exiles when I was on a LAN Party. Drunk and foolish, I bought the full forty dollar game and added this action to my list of regrets.

Conan Exile is exactly the same as any other game in this genre. You start with a weak, empty character, need to find plant fibers, wood, stones, and food. You build a little cabin, search for more food to prevent starvation, and just f*cking build stuff and kill tribe warriors and wildlife to level up. When leveling up, you increase some stats, unlock new sh!t to build, and that’s it. No endgame, no completion, just become stronger and “dominate”. Sure, there are fortresses to conquer, other players to kill, certain events and missions, caves to explore, but it still feels so generic and lacks any form of innovation in my opinion. When playing with friends, this game is (like any other game) a lot more fun, but even then, after you build a nice house, and found some resources that you needed to craft better sh!t, the boredom kicked in fast.

I have to say, giving yourself a customizable horse cock redeems some quality to the game. Other than that, the only noticeable difference and unique feature is the religion that you choose and follow at the start, giving you certain bonuses.

The graphics in Conan Exiles are nothing special. For a new game like this, I even think that they are not that great. Better graphics do not make a better game, but here, it feels janky, unpolished, crude and from 2014. Menu’s, interfaces and text borders feel like they have been made in Microsoft Paint and overall, it felt just like Ark.

The sound is generic, it is nothing special and does not deserve any special notes.

The interfaces are simple to understand and the controls are basic and workable. The movement of your character however, feels stiff, slow and clunky. My guess is that this is mainly because of the massive world, in which you move real time, like a real person.

From all the open world survival games, this one has the best atmosphere, I give it that. The massive world itself, the biomes, locations and geography are appealing. If I ever have to torture myself again for a few hours with some friends, I would pick this one over Ark or Atlas anytime.

Nevertheless, Conan Exiles made me realize (even tough I already could have figured that out by now) that open world survival games are not for me. With a steady pattern of playing with friends, I could enjoy myself for some time, but when reaching high level, fun and joy flows out of me and I immediately lose interest.

My absolute breaking point, with this game (and all the other survival games I mentioned) is when another player already harvested ton of resources, including rare and essential ones, defeating every and all purpose for you to find, scavenge or earn them by playing the game. It is this exact point why I lose interest and do not feel any accomplishment.

I would not recommend this game. Not because of my own personal experience, but because it does not have anything interesting or unique, besides the “Conan” theme. No new mechanics, no interesting new features, it is just the same as all the others.

Perhaps this one is better played on PC, because on PS4 it's simply not good. I tried to give this one a chance but it's really not worth the time.

Let me say, the game itself is not a bad one. The graphics are pretty decent, and the concept around the game is decent as well. The survival mechanics are pretty good I'd say. It was a very neat idea and the game had potential. Where the game falls short is it's combat.

This is one of the worst executed combat systems I have ever seen in any game. Terrible. The hits don't connect properly and you'll just flat out miss an opponent who is standing a foot away from you. The way you have to fight is not skillful. There is no skill capacity. It's simply block and swing, block and swing. A peasant villager is able to tank my attacks from a two-handed stone sword and swing through them with no armor, piercing through my resistant armor and causing me to stumble so I cannot swing. That same villager I killed an hour ago with no armor, a bone shield, and a simple stone axe for chopping wood and multiple levels down, because block and swing, block and swing. Repugnant.

I really tried to give this game a chance. Had potential, good survival and craft system, terrible combat. For that, this game is no more than 2/5 stars. Just not good at all. If not for the survival system, a 1/5.