The universe of "Conan the Barbarian" by author Robert Irwin Howard (Robert Ervin Howard) clearly didn’t get her due in terms of game implementations. If film adaptations gave us a series of excellent action films (and at the same time opened the world Arnold Schwarzenegger (Arnold Schwarzenegger) as an actor), daredevils attempted a video game of this scale only once – in 2008 Funcom released an MMORPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Despite some interesting solutions (in particular, the original combat system), it did not gain much fame, gradually turning into a free-to-play MMO with a very narrow circle of fans. Nevertheless, the game is alive to this day, which is also a success, you must agree.
After almost ten years, the Norwegians decided to try their luck a second time. Different genre, different heroes, but still the same “Conan” universe – early access Conan Exiles, please love and favor.
If in Rust, with a lot of luck, you can carry out a successful raid on an enemy base with a completely fresh character, then here such a trick will not work – the guards are not asleep.
Change of course
Indeed, when it was announced that the development of a new game had begun, many thought that we were in for a continuation of that same MMORPG, but Funcom I decided that in our time a more promising idea would be to make the now popular “survival”. Meanwhile, in the new “Conan” RPG elements are expressed noticeably more clearly than in the standard “survival”.
Take, for example, the process of creating a character, from which it all begins (as opposed to DayZ, there is no “common” hero for all servers). Gender, origin, deity for worship, appearance are customized, which allows you to end up with a more or less unique hero. You can talk for a long time about the sensational unique technology that allows you to realistically depict male private parts and adjust their size when creating a hero, but is it worth it?? The fact is remarkable, but nothing more – it does not affect the gameplay in any way. I’ll just note it as a successful marketing ploy – a bold decision Funcom led to the fact that these advantages of the game (and its characters) were not mentioned except by the lazy.
It didn’t come down to choosing a class and distributing skill points, as is customary in classic RPGs, but only at the creation stage – directly during the game, our hero grows in level, getting the opportunity to “pump up” one of seven characteristics. In the same way, new “recipes” for weapons, armor, buildings and everything else that can be made from resources found and obtained in battle or by honest labor are studied.
We’re left to survive
Another important difference from typical survival simulators https://spinsheavencasino.org/ is a greater emphasis on the plot, which, however, is not surprising, given such a rich literary and cinematic basis. There was even a place for Conan himself, albeit in a slightly different image and only in the opening video. It is the brave Cimmerian who saves our hero, convicted of various crimes (at each start they are different, and sometimes they are quite funny), removing him from the crucifix.
Our character has nothing behind his soul, and from clothes – only a mysterious bracelet, which will kill its wearer if he tries to get rid of such a terrible decoration or cross the borders of the Land of Exiles, which has become a new home for many of the same poor fellows. However, not everyone is lucky – staying alive here is not at all easy, especially in the desert. Fortunately, a more fertile area is very close – this is where the criminal saved from cruel death will have to go.
There is no censorship – except for the nudity of the characters, there is honest “dismemberment”. Another thing is that so far she looks rather comical.
Life is already in full swing there, and we are not just talking about other such exiles (although traces of their activities are noticeable almost immediately). The world here is not an empty “sandbox” that players will have to arrange on their own: everything is very reminiscent of an ordinary single-player RPG with an open world or MMO (if you take into account the constantly reborn “mobs” and resource deposits). The map is quite large, and you can spend a fair amount of time exploring it.
However, the terrain remains static, created without the use of procedural generation and other fashionable ways to diversify content today. On the other hand, manual work is still noticeably better than a computer algorithm. So here too – dungeons, ancient ruins, savage settlements and other interesting places are found at every turn and are made completely conscientiously.
How quickly one gets bored of “exploring” a well-trodden area over and over again is an open question. The developers promise to gradually expand the map, adding new regions, but this cannot go on forever. However, there is something to do besides travel and discovery.
Divide and conquer
The character feels hunger and thirst, which are satisfied, oddly enough, by food and drink. He also knows how to fight and construct various useful and not so useful things: from a stone ax and a loincloth to a workbench and structural elements of his own home. If you don’t pay attention to that hunger and thirst or fight the wrong people, then our hero can use another of his skills – die suddenly. Actually, to prevent the latter from happening, it is necessary to engage in the extraction of resources and the construction of various infrastructure.
There are two important differences from the usual scheme for the genre: slavery and worship of gods. The lands of exiles are inhabited by a variety of creatures, intelligent and not, including ordinary people. In addition to banal murder, they can be captured and, after a little psychological and physical treatment (in the form of the so-called wheel of pain, familiar to most thanks to the original film), valuable workers or fighters can be placed at your disposal.
Slave guards allow you to leave your home under minimal protection when there are no active players left in the settlement. Predatory raids are a favorite pastime in this genre, which is why entire cities with complex systems of protection and fortification grow on the server some time after launch. It is quite possible to imagine yourself as the ruler of these lands, proudly sitting on the throne in your own castle (fortunately, the construction system allows this), but it is unlikely that you will be able to become one alone. Conan encourages cooperation much more noticeably than other similar games. Wars between clans over resources or for the sake of banal fun are a common occurrence on any server.
Choosing your own deity to worship at the start is not just another element of the role-playing component. Each of the gods can show favor to his flock – if she proves her devotion to him, of course. You will have to prove it in different ways: for example, the serpent Seth prefers bloody sacrifices, and the Yogi demands that his followers eat human flesh.
The more zealous a player is in worshiping a particular god, the more powerful his support will be: from the ability to create special equipment and weapons, ending with summoning an avatar. With the help of this giant incarnation of one of the deities, you can easily destroy the enemy base to the ground. However, the avatar will not be an absolute weapon – it exists for a very short time, the summoner is practically defenseless, and its location becomes visible far around.
Apparently, once upon a time there was not a lifeless desert here. Only the remains of mysterious buildings remind of past greatness.
Alas, while players have to deal mainly with bugs and shortcomings – we are faced with the same classic “early access”, when a frankly unfinished product is put up for sale. In the first days it was quite difficult – for example, the list of servers could simply stop working without explanation. To the credit of the Norwegians, the patches did not take long to arrive and continue to be released with enviable regularity. We haven’t forgotten about the promise of various settings when creating your own server and support for mods – all this is already available.
As a result, no matter what, Conan Exiles a month after its release into Early Access, it feels quite confident among its peers like Rust, A Funcom happily announces half a million copies sold and shares plans. Did realistic simulation of the physics of individual body parts really help??