VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Conan Exiles - Deep Silver

RELEASE DATE:  08/05/18
PUBLISHER:  Deep Silver


SYNOPSIS:
Conan Exiles is an open-world survival game set in the brutal lands of Conan the Barbarian. Survive in a savage world, build your kingdom, and dominate your enemies in brutal combat and epic warfare. Start with nothing but your bare hands and forge the legacy of your clan, building anything a small home to gigantic fortresses and entire cities. Wage war using swords, bows, siege weapons, and even take control of giant avatars of the gods and lay waste to enemy cities. Explore a vast, seamless world full of challenge and opportunity. Hunt animals for resources, slay monsters for treasure, and delve deep underground to discover the secrets of ancient civilizations. Conan Exiles can be experienced in both local single-player and in persistent online multiplayer.

• EXPLORE A VAST WORLD: Explore a giant world, from the burning desert in the south to the snow-capped mountains in the north. Discover ancient cultures, ruins, and dungeons.
• SURVIVE: Stay warm, cool yourself down, drink and eat, weather scouring sandstorms, prevent your mind from being corrupted when exploring dark dungeons, and battle vicious monsters to stay alive.
• BUILD: Harvest resources to craft tools and weapons, then build anything from a small home to entire cities piece by piece. Build walls, traps, elevators, and more, then deck out your creations with a wide variety of different furniture, crafting stations, and NPC guards.
• DOMINATE: Wage war against your enemies, use siege weapons and explosives and see their walls crumble to dust, then unleash your savage fury in violent and brutal combat.
• BUILD AN ARMY OF THRALLS: Capture NPCs, drag them back to your base, and use the Wheel of Pain to break their will. Turn them into archers, crafters, entertainers, and more for your settlements.
• BECOME A GOD: Sacrifice your enemies on the altar of your god then summon and take control of their huge, towering avatar. Crush enemies and entire buildings under your avatar's feet.
• PLAY TOGETHER OR ALONE: Play alone locally or fight for survival and dominance in persistent multiplayer on public servers. You can also host your own server and invite others to join you.

REVIEW:

I've been a fan of the Hyborian age for years, watching as well as reading of Conan's adventures as well as playing the variety of titles out there alongside thier knockoffs (yes Barbarian's I mean you.)  So when I found a survival title featuring Conan in part where you had to not only survive but build up everything from shelters to crafting stations with mining and of course tree felling I couldn't wait to embark on this adventure.

Whilst this title has been out for quite a while on PC its recent release on console has given gamers a new opportunity to try something new, yes it makes a big feature of the PVP options but there is also group PVE as well as solo mode so that you can sit down and learn the game.  It is complex, it doesn't hold your hand and to be honest with you, learning various things the hard way is often the best way to go.

I've loved all the hours I've put in, learning nuances, fighting multiple creatures going from stone age tools through to obsidian as well as crafting my own unique base of operations that has not only expanded but been upgraded with better materials as I've learned how to not only do things on my own but also attempting to gain thralls.

OK, so that that's the good stuff, however on a negative point of view, there are quite a few bugs in the game that whilst patches are available sadly haven't fixed quite a few of the problems that I've been having (for example getting thralls to do my work for me.)  Don't get me wrong I know that this will be fixed in time but when we've already had quite a few data intensive updates I sort of hoped that a lot of these errors would have been fixed by now.

All in. it is a fun game and if you like to play survival as well as learning how to create something magnificent out of your own mind alongside crafting abilities this is certainly a game for you and with all the details alongside graphics, I have to say that for me, this is one of the best out there.   So go on, give it a go, get that blade forged and get out there slaughtering away to your hearts content.  Cracking.