As revealed by Funcom’s investor report a few days back, Conan Exiles – currently in Early Access – is slated for a full release in Q1 2018. It also, as you may have heard, has been doing pretty well for itself.
Conan and his merry band of loinclothed bretheren pulled in $1 million dollars just 60 minutes after the game released into Early Access, and it then went on to recoup all of its development costs in less than a week. Nice work if you can get it.
Might all of this land Conan a place in our list of the finest PC survival games?
But where do things go from here? Well Funcom have spoken to that now, revealing all the major #conancontent (you can use that one, guys) that will be landing between now and the time the game exits Early Access next year.
As part of a five to ten million dollar investment on the part of Funcom, six major updates are due intermittently over that period. And they are – in (probable) order, no less – as follows:
1) Siege warfare, including:
- Trebuchets (see the video above to watch one in action)
- Siege towers: these work on a ‘build your own’ system, whereby players can mix-and-match pieces on top of a moving base
- Avatar defences
- Corpse lockers: drag fallen enemies back to a gnarly toxic pit, then craft their bodies into ammunition for your trebuchet
This first instalment is due ‘very soon’, i.e. within the next month.
2) The Purge
Something of an endgame system, in which NPC armies will attack players’ cities – players thus need to build up to defend against this. You’ll be alerted to an incoming attack by the fires in your watchtowers changing colour a few days in advance.
3) Mounts, including:
- Animal thralls
- Mount and pet gear
- Mounted combat
4) Sorcery
This will allow you to utilize and get some benefit out of a corrupted state. There will be necromancy, summoning rituals and, as you can see, some fairly sinister outfits:
5) Settlement system
Funcom are intending for their to be a proper system of city life within your settlements, as well as new buildings such as barracks. There will be farming, trading, and also the ability to set schedules for your thralls so that you can, say, have them light fires at a certain time each day, or open doors for you when you approach (entrance music unconfirmed at this stage).
6) Highland biome, featuring:
- Snowy mountains
- New gods
- New resources
- The introduction of a temperature system to the game
Funcom say they’re looking to have this new biome in place by the time the game arrives on Xbox Game Preview, which is currently scheduled to be Q3 of this year.
Smaller updates, such as a dying system – i.e. dying your clothes, rather than ceasing life – and also a new dungeon are also due, along with the siege warfare update, by the end of March.