Survive, build and dominate in Conan Exiles, coming to PS4

Conan Exiles, the open world survival game from the team here at Funcom, will be launching on PlayStation 4 on Tuesday May 8.

Making this announcement, Communications Manager Funcom Tor Egil Andersen said his team wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the game and give some pointers on how to survive the brutal, hostile lands of Conan the Barbarian when the floodgates finally open.

When you first begin, you have been exiled to a harsh desert, crucified and left to die. Cut down from the cross by Conan himself, you are now faced with the daunting task of surviving in the dangerous Exiled Lands, he said.

The basics of survival

The first thing you will want to do is make your way north towards the river, as you need water to survive. Next, you will need to think about food. Early on, you can get by eating eggs and insects that you find on the ground. That’s not enough to sustain a barbarian for long, so soon you will have to start hunting animals both for their skin and for their meat. You will also have to build a campfire to cook the meat, or you run the risk of being poisoned.

Later you will also need to take special care of the temperature where you are. Once you get to the cold, frozen north, you need to dress well or run the risk of dying of cold. If you dress too much when in the southern desert you can also die of heatstroke.

Pay attention to your Journey log, which gives you useful pointers about what to do next in the game. We wanted to create an open-world survival game that didn’t just drop you in the middle of nowhere and left you to your own devices.

Mastering combat

The game has a fast-paced, tactical and brutal combat system. Unleash devastating combos on your opponents with massive swords, heavy hammers or wicked daggers. Combat is fast and furious, and you will need to make sure you dodge and block blows. Take your time learning how to master combat, and you will soon be a dancing machine of death!

As you play, you level up and increase your power. Choose your stats wisely to unlock powerful perks, like the ability to eat uncooked meat without getting sick or being able to do helpful double jumps while in the air.

Conan Exiles can be played alone in single-player, in co-op with your friends, or online on persistent official servers or one that you have rented yourself. You can also choose to play on either PvP or PvE servers, whichever you are most comfortable with.

A vast, open world

In Conan Exiles you can explore a huge and seamless world, stretching from the southern desert to the eastern swamps and the cold highlands of the north. The map is dotted with points of interest, and one of the things we set out to do with Conan Exiles is create a sandbox world that is not just an empty sandbox. There is a lot to see here.

Soon you will also discover dungeons, filled to the brim with treasure and opportunity, but also home to the foulest of monsters. The Dregs is one of the dungeons you will discover early on, and if you manage to solve its puzzles you will have to face down your first boss battle.

The world in Conan Exiles is absolutely massive and getting around can take time. You might want to build a forward base as you go on expeditions, and eventually also build a map room that allows you to fast travel to specific points in the world.

Building a kingdom

Conan Exiles has an incredibly powerful building system, allowing you to build anything from a simple home to an entire city. You can do it piece by piece, putting in walls, doors, windows, gates, elevators, and more. You can furnish it with all sorts of different furniture and crafting stations to truly create a base of operations.

There are several tiers of building materials, but when you first start out you will be making sandstone buildings. These are relatively brittle and can break easily when attacked, so you should make sure to invest feat points to discover new building materials to craft as soon as you can, especially if you are playing on a PvP server.

You unlock new things to craft and build through the feat window, and there are tons of things to unlock as you progress through the game. Try to plan out your path of progression.

Defending your home

You should think about building defenses early. Monsters and other inhabitants of the exiled lands will soon be seeking you out to break down your walls and cause havoc. Depending on where you build in the world, and how much you build, different types of monsters and NPC enemies will eventually try to attack your base and you will need to defend it.

If you are playing on a PvP server you will also have to face down other players who will be wanting a piece of your pie. In that case you definitely need to think about building the best defenses you can, as human players can both be devious and resourceful!

Building an army

Luckily, when building a base, you can also install your very own little army of thralls who will not only defend your base, but even operate your crafting stations.

You can capture NPCs, knock them unconscious, drag them back to your camp, break their will on the wheel of pain and turn them into your thralls. Some thralls can be equipped with weapons and armor to help defend your base, while many others, like blacksmiths, carpenters or tanners, can help make your crafting more efficient or unlock all new item recipes.

Choosing your god

Religion plays an important part in Conan Exiles. Worship the gods by bringing them offerings and increase your standing. You will be rewarded along the way, but the ultimate reward is being able to summon the avatar of your god to drive your enemies before you.

Taking control of a towering avatar allows you to leave a lot of destruction in your wake, but if your enemies are smart, they might have already built avatar defenses to protect their homes. Avatars are towering giants you can control for a short amount of time to kill enemies and to destroy their homes and fortifications.