Although Conan the Cimmerian is one of the best-known comic book characters of all time and several blockbuster movies based on Robert E. Howard’s muscle-bound hero were made in the 80’s, the truth is that Conan video games to date haven’t been so great.
Perhaps the better-known of these is 2007’s Conan by developer Nihilistic Software, which was a God of War clone that did not shy away from showing blood and nudity onscreen, but wasn’t up to much when it came to delivering good quality gameplay.
Developer Funcom is now working on a new Conan game, though, and one that’s looking like it could be very different to the Conan games released to date. This is because Funcom’s upcoming Conan Exiles will be an open-world survival video game, in which the player does not actually play Conan but is free to create his or her own character in the game.
Like in other sandbox games, it appears that building stuff will be a big deal in Conan Exiles, as players will be able to construct anything from simple homes to fortresses and even entire cities in the game’s world, as can be seen in the preview video above.
As creative director Joel Bylos says in the video, “we’ve tried to create a building system which is as flexible as possible”, adding that “it allows you to build buildings almost anywhere”. The game’s lead designer also added to this, saying that “one of the cool features we have is that you can build a house on a mountainside, if you want”.
Judging by this video it is clear that Conan Exiles’ building system does look intriguing, and is certainly looking like it could be a lot of fun to play once Funcom’s game is released later this year on PC and Xbox One.
Note: Conan Exiles will be released on January 31, 2017 (PC on Steam Early Access) and Spring 2017 (Xbox One).