Conan Exiles is currently one of the most talked about video games right now, even if it’s only available on PC and is currently on Steam “Early Access” right now.
The Early Access scheme allows users to pay for still in development games, helping the developers fine-tune their games until the day they are ready for a full release. This is why Conan Exiles is not yet available for consoles, although the game’s creative director Joel Bylos said at the Game Developer’s Conference this year that Funcom (the company behind the game) is hoping Exiles will see a console release in the first quarter of 2018, while also highlighting the new features that will be coming to the PC version soon.
Regarding the console editions though, it’s likely that one of Conan Exiles’ highly-publicised features won’t be making it to the Xbox One for sure. This is the game’s infamous “penis slider”, as most of you know by now that this is a game that features nudity, and that it’s possible to configure your characters’ bodies in many ways, including choosing the size of their manhood.
But sadly, Bylos recently told Glixel (via Polygon) that “Xbox has been pretty clear with us that it’s not going to fly”, adding that “I don’t know if partial nudity might be OK. We haven’t spoken to Xbox about breasts. They do allow breasts in some of their games, but the penises definitely won’t be there”.
Interestingly, Funcom’s team in Japan also raised a red flag about the matter, with Bylos telling Glixel that “there was a lot of talk from our team in Japan – because the game is translated in a lot of languages – and the Japanese translation team said ‘you’ll be banned in Japan because you have penises. That’s a flat out ban.’ But we haven’t heard anything”.
Those offended by virtual penises won’t have to worry, as these won’t feature in Conan Exiles’ console editions…
It’s unlikely there will be any form of nudity in a PS4 version of the game either, as Sony has a tight control over the kind of content that can feature in PS4 games, and last year for example it imposed quite a few restrictions on user mods for the PS4 versions of Bethesda’s Fallout 4 and Skyrim games.
It’s clear, though, that the nudity and Conan’s body configuration options have caused a furore online, with Bylos saying that Funcom was “a bit shocked” by how popular the game’s endowment slider ended up becoming, with thousands of people tweeting about the matter. Of course, it can be argued that this gratuitous nudity is just there to help Funcom sell copies of the game, although it arguably does fit in well in Conan Exiles’ setting and lore.
So regardless of whether console players will get to play with Conan Exiles nudity options or not, here’s hoping the final game ends up being a great piece of entertainment when it finally exits Steam Early Access and makes it to other platforms beyond PC next year.