In most survival games that part of it tends to be the star of the game. In this one, I would say crafting plays an even bigger role in your ability to survive. It has some unique elements to it like Thralls. There is more to this game then just crafting and survival elements as well. You have villages you can plunger and dungeons to raid while you go out and explore the world to find them.

Survival

While in the early stages of this sandbox game exploring deep and fighting off creatures is usually hindered by crocodiles, snakes. If you get really far things like freezing to death start to become a concern. Later on, the player crafts better weapons and gear designed for hot or cold climates.

You can also choose in the server settings to reduce how often you need to consume food and water. Some games out there in this market make those basic necessities such a pain. It takes away from other elements of the game as you seem to do nothing else but eat and drink. I prefer survival games to have greater depth in other parts of the game and Conan Exiles delivers.

The gear you end up crafting and wearing tends to be where you end want to depend on where you want to explore. While you could carry a torch and used food like spiced meat to stay warm in colder areas. Meanwhile wearing full fur in the jungle and having a torch out during the day is not going go over well for your character. So crafting the right gear can go a long way outside of taking reduced damage from attacks.

While something like water is quite abundant in the early half of the map. Later on, you need to carry purified water and other things with you to help on the long trips between accessible water sources. Unless you want to build a shelter and a well in critical stopping points while out gathering.

With all these different parts added up it really makes the player thing where exactly they wish to go exploring on the map. Being unprepared can be quite costly in time spent and resources lost when you die.

Shelter

In many survival games building a decent shelter to base your operations out of is quite important and Conan Exiles is no different. You have quite a range of things you can build out far beyond just a couple of walls to escape storms and other dangers.

While I myself have never been big on building a massive city. If you are playing with a group of players having your own private hut along with common areas comes quite in handy. There are also some end game items that can take up massive space that you surely will want to create a display room for others to admire your accomplishments.

Otherwise, it really comes down to location, location, location. For a lot of the early stages of the game things like iron nodes are quite important. You also want to be in an area where you can gather other resources as well. Without struggling too much to survive

In the end, finding that perfect spot to build a base becoming rather vital. It’s where you will end up building out your crafting stations, praying alter, and many other large items in this game. Having to travel long distances with heavy and large amounts of basic items like iron is for a pack mule that some players become inside of community. For the rest of us, it’s not something you want to do to have any sanity remaining!

Crafting

The game has such a huge focus on crafting it is the main way to progress along until you get into end game content. Tools and items have quite a few different tiers to them as you slowly build up your level and ability to gather better resources.

You can craft a couple of basic items out of your inventory. You become rather limited without crafting stations, a forge, and a bunch of other stuff as well. Not to mention you can only carry so much so having a place to store crafting ingredients is also nice to have.

While you do spend points you earn from leveling up to unlock certain crafting recipes. There are also many that have to be discovered in the world as well. Some of them are hidden away in dungeons while others could be hiding on side of a cliff.

To make things even deeper you have things like The Wheel of Pain which holds its own in the lore of Conan. It plays a big role for players who wish to invest time into it in their ability to craft. While they can take a fair amount of resources to build and even longer finding the perfect Thralls that are high enough level. The correct type for what you want to capture unlocks different bonuses.

These bonuses could be from reducing crafting costs which comes in really handy as the item decay in the base game can be rather brutal. Some times you are not always farming with your best tools to gather resources as it’s just not worth the decay. Other times you want to maximize yield on something hard to acquire and that is where higher-tiered tools come into play.

What I love most about the Thrall system is their ability to unlock tribe specific weapons and armor and the different crafting stations. They also allow you to get into a higher tier of crafting where you can get better stats on gear and tools as well.

To make something like a piece of armor. You might need to put leather on the tanner. Smelt some ore in the forge. Make some alchemy items in the fire bowl and then combine it all together at an armorer. Crafting can involve quite a few steps once you have all the ingredients which are more time than not the challenging part.

Most of my in-game time was spent gathering and crafting. I really loved having to refine down resources, obtain or unlock the recipe needed and then using those items to get into a harder part of the game for better resources and advance.

Pillaging

The main point I found for venturing into these different areas was to see if the Thrall you wanted to capture had spawned as gold named one.

There were also chests and just loot on everything you killed as well. Not to mention depending on your religion you may need to chop up the corpse to gather special ingredients as well. Other times you had a failed day of hunting and needing to bring other types of flesh home to cook for supper. This is defiantly not a civilized world after all!

Dungeons

Each region on the map seems to have its own dungeon for the player to find. Some of them you could walk right past and not find the entrance into them if you are not paying close attention. Others you can just walk right in and meet your death if not prepared.

Some of the dungeons are set up more like mazes where they can become easy to get lost in. Others require you to work out how to unlock doors or get past certain sections. Overall, they were a nice part of the game to fight through. I wish more survival games had dungeons.

Co-Op

The biggest thing was having players train different traits and unlock different crafting recipes. In the early game when you want so many things it’s nice to have a couple of people each work towards something different.

For instance, someone can more or less be a pack mule that goes around harvesting resources and carrying back large amounts of stuff. They can speck into carrying weight and be given better farming tools.

Meanwhile, someone else can focus on health and tanking boss fights. They can be further customized with heavy sets of gear for more armor. This really allows different styles of classes to be created by the players.

No to mention if you want to build a massive city up top some mountain with an insane elevator system going down to the bottom. You are going want a number of people playing different roles to help make it happen. Otherwise, it can become quite time-intensive.

PvP was not really our thing as we were working together in a small group. I can only imagen having to set up defenses to combat players looking to raid. Not part of the game spent any time on.

There will still be those moments where people break off into different parts of the map gathering this or that. Overall though it’s nice not having to do everything yourself. If you become bored doing one type of task you can switch off with another player and go do something different.

Mods And Single Player

Playing solo can be quite more challenging when you are facing and having to do everything yourself. What might have taken a single trip of gathering rock to build a new starting base could be four trips now.

I personally enjoyed mods that reduce the weight of items. I love being able to go on long gathering sessions without having to make a bunch of trips back to my base.

When you craft amazing items not wanting to use it due to durability loss is a shame. So again that is a perfect place to find a mod that increases durability. I've always not been a fan of games that restrict the player heavily by item durability. If you craft an amazing pickaxe you should be able to use it from here on out until you need to replace it. Not store it away and use lower-tier ones to keep farming iron and other stuff.

You also have limitations in being a single player. So things that increase theplayer level cap to 300 is frankly an amazing thing to have. While you more than likely won’t be going that high in levels. It allows you to be that one-man-band with a massive sword ready to party.

While you can play this game without mods as a single-player once you have played in a group you become a bit spoiled and rather have things a little easier. Thankfully this game has a decent-sized Workshop on Steam. So you can make the game the way you want within reason.

Final Thoughts

Other Content

• No Man's Sky
• Ark Survival Evolved
• 7 Days To Die
• State Of Decay 2

Information

Screenshots are taken and content was written by @Enjar about the game Conan Exiles. If you are thinking about getting this game and are looking to support me further consider using my Epic Games creator code: enjargames at checkout or using this referral link to be sent to the store's pages.

Disclosure: As a creator in the Epic Games’ Support-A-Creator Program, I may receive a commission from certain purchases.