I haven’t been coy about the fact that I enjoy this game immensely. Since my teenage years spent in Minecraft and my dinosaur taming days in Ark: Survival Evolved I have always had a weakness for open world Survival games where one can build what they want and survive. Conan Exiles came out years ago and I was hooked from the moment I switched the game on. It is my favourite survival game and is the reason why I became a Conan fanboy (and unapologetically so)
I have been with this game since the early access days and own it on more than one platform and although I get annoyed at bugs and glitches I keep coming back to this game as my go-to survival game to play with friends.
Recently, The Age of Sorcery was released, a free update that brought in the ability to use magic and revamped the building system as well as an in-game shop and Battlepass system. This is essentially a third release of the game, the Early access build being the first, the 1.0 release the second (which overhauled combat and such) and this latest update the third version of the game.
Though the launch of this update was disastrous to say the least, I gritted my teeth and stuck with it through two huge 40 gig patches which fixed a lot of issues though still left the game is a shaky state.
So in this series of articles I will cover all of it, from gameplay to game breaking bugs.
The Gameplay
Casting magic is so cool. When players cast a spell, rocks with runes engraved on them appear out of the ground and the player chooses which category they wish to dabble in. Want to bend the very laws of nature and make an ice bridge? Or dabble with the forces of life, death and ‘undeath’? What about channelling the dark forces? You can do all of that so long as you upgrade your spell book (which is a grind) and have enough magic pouches which act as a sort of ammunition as there is no mana bar in Conan. Casting spells causes corruption which if left untreated will cap your health and stamina to 50%. However, you need corruption to cast some of the more taxing spells and players can corrupt their attributes using souls taken from NPC humans. But this will make you a glass canon as your health takes a knock with corruption.
What is really awesome is the fact that your character gets physically affected by corruption. As in the lore of Conan, dark magic users tend to have a rot set into them, causing their skin to become taut over protruding cheekbones and sunken eye sockets. It causes their veins to protrude and turn black or purple. It’s nasty business and at maximum corruption players will look like a walking corpse.
World Events are also a regular occurrence and players have to find these organically as they explore as the game does not notify you when they activate.
Magic wielding is fun though it is a grind. To acquire blood in a vial one must sacrifice thralls upon their blood altar. Players can also summon demons as well as the undead by putting unconscious thralls into Shallow Graves which act as crafting bench for zombies.
Another huge feature is the magical portals which allow players to teleport to their other portals. My friends and I have been making portals at each base of ours and while the cost of teleportaion is a big nice layer of corruption, it’s nothing a dancer nearby the portal can’t fix. This feature alone has completely changed up the game for us.
It’s all very dark and sinister, just like magic is in the books and comics.
Remember, he who partakes in the dark arts is not the good guy.
