‘Conan Exiles’ Xbox One Release Delayed To Later In 2017

Xbox One owners hoping to try another open world survival game in the first half of this year will have to wait a little longer. Funcom announced a delay for the release of Conan Exiles the third quarter of 2017.

Details on the Conan Exiles Xbox One delay are currently extremely limited. The only information from Funcom so far has come from Twitter post announcing: “We’ve postponed the release of the Xbox One version of [Conan Exiles] to Q3 2017.”

“Q3 2017” would fall between the months of July and September. The game was originally announced to be released to the Xbox One Game Preview Program this Spring, or between the end of March and June 21. So, the delay will only be a couple of months at this point.

The following statement was also received from Funcom on the Conan Exiles Xbox One delay.

“With the initial success of Conan Exiles on PC we want to take the opportunity we now have to spend some more time on the Xbox One version before we release it into Game Preview.”

A PlayStation 4 release is also planned, but will not come until later. Sony does not have an Early Access style program for its console, so games will have to wait until closer to the official release to be released. For example, ARK: Survival Evolved is currently targeting spring 2017 release to exit Early Access on PC and Xbox One, but was launched on the PS4 this past December.

Conan Exiles was released to the PC via Steam Early Access on January 31 and has been a huge success for Funcom so far. The game has sold more than 480,000 copies so far and has likely already reached the first year sales goal of 487,000 copies, per the Funcom fourth quarter financial report published on February 27.

The initial success of Conan Exiles has fully paid for all development costs of the game thus far, a first for a Funcom published game. Additionally, the company projects high lifetime sales as open-world survival games tend to sell over longer periods of time and there are still two more platforms to launch on. The publisher plans to invest another $5 to $10 million into the game to help deliver more technical and content updates.

In addition to regular bug fixes and performance patches, Funcom plans to add around four to six content updates to Conan Exiles over the next year. Two to three content updates are scheduled for the first half of the year with another two to three for the second half.

One of the content updates in the second half of the year will include a new biome to add a new environment, terrain, monsters, equipment, and Avatars. Additionally, a previously shared roadmap revealed a Trebuchet is coming to lay siege on enemy bases. A new dye system is also coming along with sorcery and the following:

• Adding new features and content
• Improving the artificial intelligence for creatures and NPCs
• Fixing general bugs and glitches
• Adjusting floating assets, such as resources or foliage
• Balancing the crafting and progression system
• Introducing more types of thralls
• Introducing more types of craftable items
• Introducing more types of creatures
• Introducing more lore and story elements
• Introducing more placeables such as traps

ARK: Survival Evolved remains the most successful title on consoles in the open-world survival genre mainly due to the lack of competition. 7 Days to Die is the only other game in the genre on the PS4 and Xbox One and it landed with a massive thud.

Conan Exiles will have an excellent opportunity to draw in disaffected ARK console players along with new players to the genre. Those interested will just need to be patient for a little longer.

[Featured Image by Funcom]