‘Conan Exiles’ Gameplay Trailer Survives Debut, Does Crom Approve?

Funcom debuted the first gameplay footage of Conan Exiles Thursday, just days ahead of E3 2016. The open-world survival game set in the Conan universe is set to release to Steam’s Early Access program this summer with a PlayStation 4 and Xbox One release coming later.

The trailer hosted by IGN displays pre-alpha gameplay footage, so expectations should be tempered. There is clearly some improvement to be done with the animation and graphics. Otherwise, those familiar with survival games such as ARK: Survival Evolved and Rust will recognize much of the gameplay elements.

Conan: Exiles comes with all trappings of an open-world survival game. Players will be able to gather resources to build tools, weapons, and bases in a large open-world based on the harsh land of Hyboria from the Conan franchise.

Players will have the option to join multiplayer games on both public and private servers, or can do it alone in a single-player mode. It’s not been announced yet if there will be PVE servers, but there is a definite PVP focus with players able to sacrifice enemies to the gods for added power.

You can see a sacrifice being performed to the Snake Cult’s Great Serpent toward the end as a giant serpent rises from the sacrificial altar flanked by two crucified characters.

Prior to that, the trailer shows some of the creatures players will fight in the game like a giant bat, giant spider, and a rhinoceros. Other players will undoubtedly be the largest danger so there will be options to craft wood and iron melee weapons, plus melee weapons. The opening of the trailer shows a crossbow shooting a fire bolt at containers to cause a massive explosion that destroys the walls of a base. Clearly, something else that can be crafted.

The structure crafting system appears to be similar to ARK: Survival Evolved and other survival games. Players will need to lay foundations followed by walls and rooftops all made of stone or wood. The camera pans out at one point to reveal a small town with multiple buildings and two large walls. It will be interesting to see how Conan Exiles performs with such structures, as ARK has demonstrated performance issues when multiple large structures are close to one another.

Perhaps the partnership announced Wednesday between Funcom and NVIDIA will help that. The developer is working with the graphics card maker’s engineers to bring the high quality graphics to the open-world survival genre.

“Funcom is renowned for pushing the visual and artistic quality of its games to the limit,” stated Keita Iida, senior director, global content management at NVIDIA. “With help from our GameWorks game development tools and our world-class visual computing engineers, Funcom is set to deliver an amazing, reimagined world of Conan.”

Here is the official description of Conan Exiles.

“You are an exile, one of thousands cast out to fend for themselves in a barbaric wasteland swept in sandstorms and besieged by enemies on every side. Grow crops or hunt animals for food. Harvest resources to build weapons and tools. Build a shelter to survive. Ride across a vast world and explore alone, or band together with other players to build entire settlements and fortified strongholds.”

“Unleash your fury in savage, fast-paced combat and execute bloody and bone-crushing attacks that will see heads rolling and limbs flying. Fight other players to dominate the exiled lands, and even call upon the wrath of the heavens to aid you by sacrificing enemy players on the alters [sic] of the gods.”

What do you think of Conan Exiles so far? Does it look like it will win Crom’s approval or disapproval as an open-world survival game set in the universe created by Robert E. Howard? Sound off in the comments below.

[Image via Funcom]

[Update: Replaced images with official images from Funcom]