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Conan Exiles

Step into the Hyborian Age with Funcom’s surprising take on the survival genre.
71%Game Brain Score
gameplay, graphics
stability, grinding
79% User Score Based on 102,578 reviews
Critic Score 63%Based on 34 reviews

Platforms

PCXboxXboxXbox Series X|SXbox Series X|SPlaystation 5Playstation 4WindowsWindowsPlayStationPlayStationXbox Game PassCloudXbox OneXbox Cloud GamingTabletNVIDIA GeForce NOW
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About

"Conan Exiles" is a survival game set in the brutal world of Conan the Barbarian. Players must gather resources, craft tools and buildings, and survive against enemies and other players in a vast open world. With a focus on exploration, combat, and player freedom, "Conan Exiles" offers a unique and challenging experience in a rich and immersive setting.

Genres & Tags
Play Modes
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
Conan Exiles screenshot
+26

79%
Audience ScoreBased on 102,578 reviews
gameplay3.1k positive mentions
stability5.9k negative mentions
  • The building mechanics in Conan Exiles set the gold standard for survival games, allowing for extensive creativity and base building.
  • The graphics are stunning and immersive, showcasing detailed environments that enhance the overall aesthetic experience.
  • The game offers a rich atmosphere and lore, effectively capturing the essence of the Conan universe and providing an engaging survival experience.
  • The game suffers from persistent bugs and glitches, leading to a frustrating experience with issues like freezing, lag, and unresponsive AI.
  • Many players find the grinding aspect excessively tedious and time-consuming, detracting from the overall enjoyment of the game.
  • The monetization model has been criticized as aggressive and predatory, with concerns that it detracts from the overall gameplay experience.
  • gameplay
    9,240 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay of *Conan Exiles* is characterized by its rich building mechanics, immersive world, and a blend of survival and RPG elements that keep players engaged. While the game offers a variety of gameplay styles, including PvE and PvP, many players note that it suffers from bugs, clunky combat mechanics, and a steep learning curve, particularly for newcomers. Despite these issues, the game is praised for its depth, modding community, and the potential for creative expression through base building and exploration.

    • “The building mechanics in Conan Exiles set the gold standard for survival games.”
    • “The world of Conan Exiles is rich and immersive, full of diverse biomes, dangerous creatures, and challenging dungeons that keep the gameplay fresh and engaging.”
    • “The gameplay is quite immersive and it is made for all players, new and old.”
    • “If you're considering this game, you must go in accepting that despite its promises of immersion, the apparently persistent bugginess will interrupt your gameplay.”
    • “However the simple mechanics of moving items from your inventory to your quickbar were broken.”
    • “The mechanics remain clunky and are often un-intuitive, so it's a pain in the ass.”
  • graphics
    6,194 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics in "Conan Exiles" are widely praised for their stunning visuals and immersive environments, showcasing detailed landscapes and character models that enhance the overall aesthetic experience. While many players appreciate the game's artistic design and the use of Unreal Engine 4, some report issues with graphical glitches and performance, particularly on lower-end systems. Overall, the graphics are considered a strong point of the game, contributing to its appeal in the survival genre.

    • “The graphics are stunning, and the environment is incredibly detailed, making every step you take in the game feel like a true adventure.”
    • “The graphics are absolutely gorgeous.”
    • “The graphics in Conan Exiles are impressive and provide a high level of detail, with well-designed environments and character models that bring the world of the game to life.”
    • “But the most important thing, they didn't fix one of the most clunky combat systems of any game that I've played, the graphics of a 2005 game, and the optimization... I run Elden Ring easier on ultra than this game on medium.”
    • “The graphics are outdated and do not hold up well compared to other titles in the same genre.”
    • “The graphics... ohhhhh the graphics... they make me bloat like a drowned pig and soften into sludge.”
  • stability
    6,154 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The stability of "Conan Exiles" has been a significant point of contention among players, with many reviews highlighting its persistent bugs and glitches. Despite some improvements over time, players frequently report issues such as freezing, lag, and unresponsive AI, which can detract from the overall experience. While some find the game enjoyable and engaging despite these problems, the consensus is that it remains a buggy mess, often feeling unfinished and in need of further polish and optimization.

    • “The game runs great, and most of the bugs are gone, and it's actually a playable game now.”
    • “It's stable, not that buggy, and things generally work, even with mods.”
    • “I have noticed little to no glitches after more than 60 hours of play.”
    • “This game is a buggy, incomplete dumpster fire with more bugs per minute than a Florida barbecue.”
    • “The game is a laggy, buggy, unplayable mess.”
    • “It's a buggy hot mess that the devs should be ashamed for 'releasing' in such a state.”
  • story
    5,512 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The story in "Conan Exiles" is often described as minimal and fragmented, with many players noting that it lacks a clear narrative structure or quest system. While there are elements of lore scattered throughout the game, such as journals and environmental storytelling, players must actively seek these out to piece together the overarching story. Some find this approach engaging, allowing for personal storytelling, while others feel it leaves the game feeling aimless and lacking depth. Overall, the game is more focused on survival and crafting mechanics than on delivering a robust narrative experience.

    • “The lore and story are really incredible, but I do wish it was expanded more with cinematics, instead of being told by notes and by NPCs.”
    • “The world is rich with lore, and the game’s sandbox nature allows for emergent storytelling.”
    • “The story is handled really well; unless you want a 'go here, do this' type of quest, the more you explore, the more puzzle pieces you get, and I'm sucked right into it.”
    • “There's a story here filled with characters and lore but... I'm not sure where it is.”
    • “The lore is pretty good in itself, but I will say, there is a huge lack of storyline in the game.”
    • “So if you're looking for storyline in this game, you're not gonna find a lot of it.”
  • grinding
    3,544 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The grinding aspect of "Conan Exiles" is a significant point of contention among players, with many describing it as excessively tedious and time-consuming. While some enjoy the immersive experience of resource gathering and crafting, others find the repetitive nature of grinding for materials and the high resource costs for building upgrades to be frustrating, especially in solo play. Overall, the game offers a mix of rewarding progression and overwhelming grind, leading to a varied player experience depending on individual preferences for grinding and multiplayer interaction.

    • “Building is easily done, resource harvesting is not too tedious, and crafting is made very easy to do.”
    • “There's a lot of different armor and weapon sets, progression is pretty steady and not too grindy.”
    • “For a game that captures the MMO vibe, it also isn't grindy; you can get to the cap quickly, build relatively quickly, etc.”
    • “It's not that fun to spend half a day running around, grinding resources, building up your clan's base and then getting raided by a single hacker monkey flying right over your fort defense and just ripping the whole fortress to ashes.”
    • “The building is decent and I like the idea of getting thralls to do the labor for you (no matter how sick that sounds) since it is a fun idea... however, grinding to get named thralls is just so time-consuming, then you have to drag them all the way back to your base and then wait even longer for them to be proper thralls that you can use.”
    • “The crafting system, while initially interesting, becomes a tedious grind.”
  • optimization
    2,422 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The optimization of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players reporting significant performance issues such as stuttering, lag, and crashes, particularly during large-scale battles or on populated servers. While some users note improvements over time and commend the game's graphics and overall design, others express frustration over persistent bugs and a lack of attention to optimization from the developers. Overall, the consensus suggests that while the game has potential, it remains poorly optimized and can be unplayable for many, especially on lower-end systems.

    • “Beautiful, well optimized, remarkably stable, very fun combat.”
    • “Game is well optimized and has full controller support, and has a lot of content.”
    • “The game is very fun and a lot more optimized to run on a variety of pc's and consoles with minimal bugs, a lot better than ark which is a similar great game.”
    • “After almost 5 years, the game is still unoptimized... it seems like the devs only care about selling new packs/DLCs.”
    • “This game is poorly optimized to the point of unplayability.”
    • “The performance issues are so bad that I can't even hit my monitor's refresh rate on low-end laptop mode; the AI is the most cryptic thing to exist, and it's so godforsaken janky that I could slather my balls in honey over an ant hill and I would still find less bugs than this monstrosity of a game.”
  • music
    1,164 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in "Conan Exiles" has received widespread acclaim for its immersive and atmospheric qualities, drawing heavy inspiration from Basil Poledouris's iconic score for the original Conan films. Players appreciate the orchestral compositions that enhance the game's epic fantasy setting, although some have noted that the combat music can become repetitive and intrusive during exploration. Overall, the soundtrack is considered a highlight of the game, contributing significantly to the player's experience in the harsh world of Conan.

    • “Conan Exiles boasts a beautiful and immersive soundtrack with well-done voice acting coupled with a structured UI and progression system that can be adjusted for those who prefer a more challenging or 'grindy' journey or a more relaxed, exploration and combat-focused experience.”
    • “The background music of the game is a brilliant copy of the style of Basil Poledouris, the composer of the score of Conan the Barbarian, one of the greatest scores in history.”
    • “The music is excellent as usual (Age of Conan had one of the best soundtracks) and sounds like Basil from the old Conan movies did it himself!”
    • “The off/on/off/on with the exploration/combat music was so annoying that, despite the otherwise lovely Poledouris-like (or appropriately high-fantasy or epic) score, I had to turn the music off.”
    • “The soundtrack cribs from Exiles: there's not much in the way of new music.”
    • “The bland music (except the main menu theme) adds nothing to the game experience.”
  • monetization
    979 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The monetization model of the game has drawn significant criticism from players, who describe it as aggressive and predatory, particularly following the introduction of microtransactions and a battle pass system. Many feel that the focus on monetization detracts from the overall gameplay experience, with concerns about the fairness and value of in-game purchases, which are often seen as cash grabs. Despite some players enjoying the core gameplay, the overwhelming presence of ads and costly DLCs has led to a general sentiment of disappointment and frustration within the community.

    • “It does have cosmetic microtransactions and DLC, but they are not a must-buy to have a fun, full experience.”
    • “Overall, the gameplay is still good, but you can tell they are not focused on this game except for monetization, and it is showing hard.”
    • “While it's understandable that developers need to generate revenue to support ongoing development, the way in which these monetization methods have been integrated into the game may not sit well with all players.”
    • “The reason I can't recommend this is the very obnoxious monetization in this game that is creating serious issues.”
    • “The introduction of microtransactions can sometimes create a sense of imbalance, where those willing to spend extra money gain an unfair advantage over others.”
    • “Overall the gameplay still is good, but you can tell they are not focused on this game except for monetization and it is showing hard.”
  • humor
    780 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The humor in "Conan Exiles" is a mixed bag, often stemming from its numerous bugs and glitches, which players find both frustrating and amusing. Many reviews highlight the game's darkly comedic elements, such as the absurdity of nudity and the ridiculous character animations, leading to hilarious moments, especially when played with friends. Overall, while the game has its serious flaws, it provides a chaotic and entertaining experience that can be enjoyed for its comedic value.

    • “But while the world looks gorgeous, the character animations can be hilariously stiff, and NPCs sometimes behave like they've been enchanted by a wizard specializing in awkwardness.”
    • “It’s brutal, it’s hilarious, and yes, you’ll die a lot—possibly in very embarrassing ways.”
    • “The game is very funny, no matter single-player or multiplayer.”
    • “The base game content itself has its bugs, some funny -- some very not funny, and eventually you will run out of content, but if you like defeating the same bosses over and over again and building houses over and over again, it might be your type of game!”
    • “This is not a full release of a game, it is so buggy it is not funny, you cannot play for more than 5 minutes without running into a game-changing bug.”
    • “I have clipped into so many tents mid-fight with an archer who just runs backwards and quick fires that it's not funny.”
  • atmosphere
    663 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The atmosphere of "Conan Exiles" is widely praised for its immersive and captivating environment, effectively capturing the essence of the Conan universe with rich lore, stunning visuals, and atmospheric sound design. Players appreciate the game's diverse biomes, detailed world-building, and the nostalgic feel reminiscent of the original Conan stories and films. Despite some technical issues and bugs, the overall atmosphere is considered one of the game's strongest assets, drawing players into its brutal and engaging survival experience.

    • “Rich lore and atmosphere: the game beautifully captures the essence of the Conan universe.”
    • “The attention to detail in the environments and the atmospheric lighting create a sense of realism and make every location feel unique and captivating.”
    • “The atmosphere, music, and visual design are all very fitting for the Conan setting and bring up nostalgia for the Arnie movies.”
    • “The game has a trash (rust/dayz like) quality in terms of visual, audio, animation, player control etc. Many devs do not understand that a big part of survival is atmosphere and immersion.”
    • “It had no atmosphere, no story to it, no theme and the design made no sense.”
    • “The atmosphere in some of them (looking at you wine cellar and warmaker's sanctuary) actually made me need a break, it was just too dark.”
  • replayability
    358 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The replayability of the game is a mixed bag, with many players praising its high potential due to extensive mod support and multiplayer options, which can significantly enhance the experience. However, some users express disappointment with the lack of randomized content and limited replay value after completing the main progression, suggesting that while the game offers hours of fun, it may not sustain long-term engagement without additional updates or content. Overall, the community-driven modding scene plays a crucial role in extending the game's replayability, making it a more enjoyable experience for those willing to explore these options.

    • “Overall, Conan Exiles is a fantastic survival game with a lot of depth and replayability.”
    • “This is one of those games where the modding scene has breathed an incredible amount of new life and replayability into the game, and I highly recommend it to people who enjoy roleplay.”
    • “With so much opportunity for creativity, roleplay, and replayability, honestly, I could play this game endlessly.”
    • “Second, the lack of replayability after finishing the main progression is a bit disappointing.”
    • “There just isn't enough to this game to make it a perpetually replayable gem, and it is definitely not worth $60.”
    • “Conan feels empty; it currently lacks replayability unless you're playing roleplay because there's a lack of things to do aside from grind resources.”
  • emotional
    138 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The emotional responses to the game are mixed, with players expressing both deep attachment and frustration. Many find joy in the game's immersive world and community, leading to heartfelt moments and a sense of adventure, while others experience heartbreak due to bugs, loss of progress, and emotional tolls from gameplay mechanics like permadeath. Overall, the game elicits a wide range of feelings, from nostalgia and excitement to disappointment and sadness, reflecting the complex relationship players have with it.

    • “The amount of progress one can lose without being able to prevent it is simply heartbreaking.”
    • “A wholesome game about making friends with the natives of a harsh and unwelcoming land, and together, overcoming many hardships to etch out a wonderful life.”
    • “I loved this game and I will always remember the friends I've met and the stories I helped create, but it's not worth the emotional toll it has taken on me and many of those friends I met here.”
  • character development
    94 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Character development in "Conan Exiles" receives mixed reviews, with many praising its depth and RPG elements, particularly for roleplaying enthusiasts. However, some players criticize it as linear and lacking complexity, with a tendency for characters to converge on similar builds. Overall, while the character design and customization options are generally well-received, there are calls for more diverse progression systems and side quests to enhance the experience.

    • “As someone who enjoys not just the mechanical aspects of a game but also the storytelling and character development opportunities it can offer, I have found 'Conan Exiles' to be a treasure trove for roleplaying enthusiasts like myself.”
    • “Absolutely everything I have ever wanted in a game in every aspect: open world, comprehensive character development, rags to riches survival, freedom of interaction, and awesome combat, among many other features.”
    • “Strong RPG elements in character development as well as differing biomes and creature diversity is something to cheer for, as well as the epic/boss monsters and dungeons.”
    • “One thing I always disliked about Funcom was how amazing their worlds looked, and how horrible their character design was.”
    • “You are just walking (forget mounts) around and gathering stuff and building a few bases, which you can make really big, and all this you can do looking a little bit like Conan... and that's the whole game, really there is nothing else... no progression, no character development, no excitement, nada.”
    • “Character development is not particularly complex and all characters have to follow the same paths; religions offer some small differences, but my knowledge of this aspect is not comprehensive enough to offer anything other than that.”

63%Critics’ scoreBased on 34 critic reviews

Buy Conan Exiles

101h Median play time
371h Average play time
39h Main story
124h Completionist
20-500h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 1,018 analyzed playthroughs

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