‘Conan Exiles’ Bringing Two New Biomes, Fast Travel, And More At Official Launch

Funcom is committed to bringing Conan Exiles out of Steam Early Access and the Xbox One Game Preview program in just three months. The official release of the open-world survival title will come with many new features along with two new biomes to explore. Unfortunately, not everything is making the cut for release, and the studio spelled out what is in and what is out.

Conan Exiles is set to officially launch on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on May 8. The developers at Funcom will spend the remaining time polishing the game and working on features tagged for the early access exist as well as priming the title for its debut on Sony’s console.

New Biomes

The good news is fans will gain two new regions to explore. The barriers to the swamp on the eastern part of the map will be dropped and give Exiles a kind of deep jungle-like atmosphere full of new monsters, crafting recipes, weapons, armor, building materials, and more.

The large river in the starting area of the Conan Exiles map splits the swamp in half all the way to the ocean. There is a coast and small islands, which should be interesting to explore.

Meanwhile, the Frozen North will gain the volcano biome. This massive lava-filled area will feature tunnels and caverns for players to explore long-forgotten ruins and encounter another new set of creatures and loot.

The Conan Exiles map certainly suggests further growth is possible in the future. There are large areas still obscured to the north of the swamp and to the east of the Frozen North.

New Combat System

Funcom has prioritized a new combat system featuring weapon-specific combinations for release. This is a large step-up from the current simple melee combat and should make fighting deeper than just button-mashing.

The combat overhaul will also bring back the ability to run with a weapon or tool equipped. Funcom had to disable this ability due to players exploiting the existing mechanics to essentially “lag joust.”

The Purge

Funcom highlighted the Purge as one of the features that made Conan Exiles stand out from other survival titles when the game was first announced. It will finally make its appearance at launch and is essentially a mechanism to clean a server of bases that have been left abandoned and undefended.

This is especially true on PVE servers and in single-player gameplay, as there is not much of a threat to player-built bases. The Purge mechanic will require players to build walls, traps, and train thralls to defend against attacks from a single creature or large groups of bandits.

Other New Features

Also coming to Conan Exiles at official launch is a farming system, a new religion worshipping the avatar Derketo, and war paint that can give stat bonuses to a character. Funcom is also adding obelisks around the map to allow players to fast travel from one location to another as they are discovered.

Finally, a perk system will be added as well to give characters bonuses based off which stat they choose to invest their level upgrade points. This can help in battle, travel, or simply surviving by not having to cook raw meat.

What’s Out

Mounts are out due to the impacts on the server and the way the maps are designed. Funcom’s investigation into implementing mounts points to breaking the map down into smaller chunks, which carries some risk that the developers are not willing to take on right before launch.

Sorcery is out too due to the work spent overhauling the Conan Exiles combat system. Funcom originally planned to use corruption as a means to gain magical powers, but that is now out altogether. Instead, the developers will expand brewing potions and poisons.

Also missing the cut is a settlement system which was never clearly defined for Conan Exiles. Some of the ideas for how thralls are managed did come from the settlement concept, but Funcom ultimately decided the general AI and combat AI systems needed much more attention to have the game ready for launch.