The survival hit Conan Exiles has been on the market for four years and ventures decisive improvements with the Age of Sorcery update. We have played Age of Sorcery and reveal to you where the development team became active.
Since its release in 2018, Conan Exiles, like many other genre representatives, has gathered a bit of dust: At some point, you grudgingly get used to the quirks of different systems, age-old bugs are eventually just laughed at, and many a desired content ends up in the game as a mod crafted by creative people. A few DLCs have been released, a few corners have been tweaked and adjusted, but on the whole you play a very similar Conan Exiles as you did four years ago.
This will change with the upcoming Age of Sorcery update, which will not only introduce magic as a new system, but also completely overhaul the building system. I played Age of Sorcery for you in an exclusive tour with Lead Designer Dennis Douthett and Senior Content Manager Tor Egil Andersen from Funcom and was pleasantly surprised: In addition to the innovations long awaited by many fans, this update makes everyday play a lot easier. This doesn”t only affect building fans, but also everyone who enjoys travelling, beautifying and discovering.
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The Demon Next Door
At the latest, once the map is completely explored, you”ve collected all the recipes and emotes and know where to find certain types of Thralls, exploring becomes significantly less fun. Sure, if you play on the same map for four years, you”ll eventually know every corner and feel like you know every enemy by their first name.
The new events bring more variety to the game: you encounter them at different locations in the game and are first confronted with an introductory scene. In the event I was able to sample, a slave girl sat in the middle of a ritual circle surrounded by several sinister figures. As soon as the darkies were on the floor, it became apparent that the slave was not a slave at all, but the actual summoner, who laughed at me properly.
Then she immediately summoned two huge demons in jackal heads to let them loose on me. What appeared as the final boss after these rather unfriendly contemporaries can only be described as a bad-tempered octopus-Chtulhu mixture of the three-dead-head difficulty level and was accordingly less than enthusiastic about the disturbance.
So far, five different events have landed in the game, which are best played in groups and which, according to Dennis Douthett, vary greatly – among other things, you should keep an eye out for a caravan. Of course, this is all about action, which requires a few well-equipped heroes. The underlying system clears the way for further, new events and gives Funcom the right tool for upcoming Age expansions in particular.
Here today, right there
Until now, more convenient fast travel was almost only possible through mods. It is true that there are already several monoliths in the game that can be accessed through a somewhat more elaborate map room. But the monoliths are an integral part of the basic game map, so you are still forced to navigate to your destinations from their position. This is made easier by the new portals, which are on the one hand much smaller than the huge map space and on the other hand can be placed anywhere on the map.
All portals built by clan members are connected to each other, and their individual positions are indicated by stones floating in the portal – it couldn”t be easier to build your own fast-travel network. Like all structures, however, portals are also destructible, so you should secure them against purges and, on PvP servers, also against enemy clans.
The upcoming transmogrification system also fulfils fan wishes of the first hour and provides you with a new workbench. Here you can give weapons and armour the look of similar equipment – and at best save yourself another mod with similar effects.
The hammer is the hammer!
The previous building system was mainly functional. Sure, you could use it to build houses, forts and spacious city complexes if you adjusted to the little quirks. But comfortable is different. At the latest with a large selection of different building styles and buildings in which all kinds of components were used, the tinkering quickly degenerated into an annoying orgy of clicking.
First, you had to have all the necessary resources in your inventory, then you produced the individual components, moved them to the DeepL access bar and only then placed them in the game world. In addition, there was the cumbersome search for specific components in the crafting menu – in short, until now, building required a lot of patience, a fair amount of carrying power and an empty inventory.
In future you will only use a building hammer, which will be placed in the DeepL access bar.
opens the extra construction menu. There you will see all the components of a style and quality arranged on one page with symbol pictures. All you have to do is have the necessary building resources on hand and, after clicking on the desired part, place it in the game world.
No more annoying moving of finished parts back and forth, no more characters totally overloaded with newly created components! The new system is a real relief, especially for frequent builders and console players, and it provides a much better overview. The demolition of placed parts will also be much quicker in future, as you only have to point at the corresponding part and use a function key (on the PC, the mouse wheel). Some of the resources used will be returned as usual.
More possibilities with magic
Aside from the ability to build up a real Conan the Barbarian atmosphere with stylish spells and dark summoning rituals, the new magic system provides you with one thing above all: more options!
Use the flying demon paraglider or the ice bridge to move faster through the landscape, temporarily summon armour, weapons and mounts, summon strong companions, keep enemies on the ground or deal out a lot of damage with a lightning storm.
Sure, if you overdo it with the corruption, you”ll soon be able to enter your avatars on Empire”s Next Top Model, as their corrupted looks quickly rival Emperor Palpatine. But the added effects of corrupted attribute values are both enticing and useful. What does it matter that you have to put some poor Thrall on your sacrificial altar, bestially slaughter him and suck the soul out of him for it!
The system remains pleasantly fair, each spell and each summon has an extensive animation. This gives enemies enough time to attack unprotected magic casters. Spells are made up of several floating runestones that have to be activated one after the other, and you have to remember their effect by means of the engraved symbols.
This means that in PvP you won”t have to deal with flameball-throwing permanent spellcasters, but will have to proceed tactically, just like when using altar avatars – or cleverly eliminate the magic casters of your opponents.
Editor”s Verdict
There is no game in which a hard habituation effect doesn”t set in for me at some point when I spend several years with it. Especially the Siptah map, which was rather sobering for my taste, really spoiled my enjoyment of Conan Exiles for quite a while, but since the Age of Sorcery announcement I”m really motivated again.
This was reinforced by the fun tour with Dennis Douthett and Tor Egil Andersen, as I could really sense their enthusiasm for the game and its development over the past years in conversation. On top of that, there are many innovations that should bring new momentum to the game, even away from the magic.
To me, this suggests that we can expect revisions of cumbersome systems in the future and that the development team will take a close look at how well the individual game elements work. As a frequent builder, I”d love to get started now and also take advantage of the new Acheronian-style components that will become available at the Age of Sorcery launch.
That aside, the sorcery is just incredibly stylish and bitterly evil in design, just as it should be in the world of Conan. Small tip: If you use the flying demon, be careful not to fly too high at the end of the spell duration, otherwise a “AAAAAAAHHH!” – Splat! is inevitable. Of course, this has never happened to me myself!
