Conan Exiles

Conan Exiles PC is an open-world survival RPG set in the brutal Hyborian world of Conan the Barbarian. On Steam, the current storefront name is Conan Exiles Enhanced, while the older Unreal Engine 4 build is available as Conan Exiles Legacy. The Enhanced version combines survival, crafting, action combat, base building, character progression, and persistent multiplayer into a sandbox where your long-term goal is defined by the settlement, clan, or warband you create.

Developed by Funcom with collaboration from Inflexion Games and published by Funcom, it is designed for solo play, private co-op, dedicated servers, and competitive online worlds. The result is less of a traditional campaign and more of a player-directed survival journey shaped by exploration, construction, conquest, and server rules.

Survival, combat, and exploration

You begin as an exile with limited equipment in the Exiled Lands. Early progress comes from gathering wood, stone, fiber, food, and water, then turning those materials into tools, weapons, shelter, and crafting stations. Hunger, thirst, temperature, weather, and hostile creatures keep basic survival relevant even after your character becomes heavily equipped.

The camera supports both first-person and third-person play, giving PC players flexibility during exploration, construction, and combat. Movement includes climbing across much of the environment, while the world ranges from desert and river regions to swamps, ruins, volcanic areas, and snowy northern terrain.

Combat is action-focused rather than menu-driven. You combine light and heavy attacks with blocking, dodging, stamina management, weapon reach, and positioning. Swords, axes, daggers, spears, bows, shields, and other weapon categories encourage different approaches, while enemies include human factions, monsters, dungeon bosses, and other players on PvP servers.

Exploration is tied directly to advancement. Ruins, hostile camps, dungeons, lore objects, and hidden locations provide new recipes, equipment, resources, and narrative context. The game does not force a linear mission route, so players can prioritize building, hunting, dungeon exploration, role-play, or clan warfare.

Building a settlement and managing thralls

Construction is one of Conan Exiles’ defining systems. You can assemble everything from a small defensive shelter to a fortified compound or large player-built city. Piece-by-piece building supports walls, foundations, roofs, elevators, traps, defensive structures, furniture, storage, and specialized crafting areas.

Building is not purely cosmetic. Base location affects access to resources, defensive visibility, travel routes, and exposure to enemies. On PvE servers, architecture can focus on function and presentation. On PvP servers, siege defense, layered walls, traps, vault protection, and clan logistics become central design concerns.

The thrall system gives captured NPCs practical roles inside your settlement. After being subdued and processed through a Wheel of Pain, thralls can serve as fighters, archers, crafters, entertainers, or other specialist workers. A strong base therefore depends not only on its walls but also on the people assigned to its crafting stations and defenses.

This management layer separates Conan Exiles from simpler survival sandboxes. Your character remains important, but a developed settlement also depends on production chains, follower equipment, defensive assignments, and the quality of the NPCs you recruit.

Sorcery, religions, mounts, and progression

Character development uses attributes, perks, learned recipes, equipment, and religious progression. Different builds can emphasize direct melee strength, ranged combat, carrying capacity, durability, or authority over followers. The Journey system gives players optional objectives that introduce mechanics and reward experimentation without turning the game into a conventional quest-driven RPG.

Sorcery adds a darker progression path. Players can corrupt themselves to access supernatural abilities, summon creatures, manipulate the environment, and use magic for traversal or combat. Corruption is not simply a free power upgrade, since embracing it affects survivability and changes how the character is built.

Religion also has a tangible gameplay role. Players can devote themselves to deities, construct altars, make sacrifices, and eventually summon powerful avatars capable of damaging enemy structures. These systems matter most in organized multiplayer, where religious investments can support larger strategic goals.

Mounts and pets expand travel and combat options, while dungeons and legendary equipment provide reasons to continue exploring after the basic survival loop becomes familiar. Current Enhanced content also includes the Legacy of the Giant-Kings story arc, including the Cyclopean Halls dungeon and the return of legendary gear repair.

Maps, expansions, and the current content model

The standard game centers on the Exiled Lands. The paid Isle of Siptah expansion adds a separate landmass with its own creatures, vaults, building sets, resources, the Maelstrom, and Surges of Sorcery. In the Enhanced version, the Exiled Lands and Isle of Siptah are connected so that one character can travel between them without maintaining separate map-specific characters.

Ownership of Isle of Siptah is still required to access its expansion content. The Enhanced upgrade itself is provided as a free upgrade for existing and future Steam owners of Conan Exiles, but it does not convert the expansion into free content.

The Steam catalog also lists themed content packs such as People of the Dragon, Architects of Argos, Riders of Hyboria, Debaucheries of Derketo, Blood and Sand, The Imperial East, Jewel of the West, The Savage Frontier, Seekers of the Dawn, Treasures of Turan, and The Riddle of Steel. These packs primarily expand building pieces, armor, decorations, mounts, and other themed customization rather than replacing the core survival systems.

Conan Exiles also uses in-game purchases through the Bazaar. The Battle Pass model has been removed, while previously owned DLC, Bazaar items, Crom Coins, and Twitch Drops carry into the Enhanced version. Players choosing the Legacy branch retain owned content but lose access to the Bazaar, official PC servers, new live content, and ongoing support for that older build.

Solo, co-op, PvP, and server choices

Conan Exiles works as a solo survival sandbox, but its systems become broader when other players are involved. Steam supports single-player, online co-op, and online PvP, while private servers and dedicated server tools allow groups to define their own settings.

Co-op suits small groups that want to build a shared base, explore dungeons, capture thralls, and adjust the world around their preferred pace. Dedicated servers are the better choice for persistent group play because the world can remain available without relying on one player’s local session.

Public servers create a sharper divide between PvE, PvE-Conflict, and PvP experiences. PvE emphasizes exploration and construction, while PvP adds territory disputes, raids, siege weapons, clan politics, and the risk of losing carefully built infrastructure. The server rules matter as much as the character build.

Players who prefer survival games with strong settlement management may also enjoy tribe-focused open-world survival RPGs such as Soulmask, although Conan Exiles places more emphasis on Hyborian combat, religion, sorcery, and large-scale player conflict.

PC features and platform considerations

The current Steam version is Conan Exiles Enhanced, built around Unreal Engine 5 technology and a redesigned presentation. Enhanced adds improved visuals, updated interface work, storage-aware crafting, multiple single-player and co-op save slots, merged map travel, Steam Deck support, and refreshed mod support.

Steam also provides Steam Workshop support, achievements, trading cards, Family Sharing, and Remote Play features. Mods can change the rules, progression, building options, or overall tone of a private game, but mod compatibility may need attention after major game updates.

Full controller support is available on the Steam listing, making gamepad play practical for players who prefer third-person exploration and action combat from the couch. Keyboard and mouse remain useful for inventory management, server administration, and detailed building work.

Steam is currently the important PC platform for Enhanced and official PC server access. Epic Games Store and Microsoft Store players can continue using the Conan Exiles Legacy version, but they do not have access to the current official PC server ecosystem tied to Enhanced.

The Steam version lists interface and subtitle support for English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Italian. Full audio is listed for English only.

Who should play Conan Exiles?

Conan Exiles suits players who enjoy long-term base building, survival systems with adjustable server settings, action combat, creature hunting, crafting specialization, and the social politics of persistent multiplayer. It is especially strong for groups that want to build a recognizable settlement and gradually turn it into a defended clan stronghold.

It is less suitable for players seeking a tightly authored single-player campaign, highly structured party-based RPG progression, or a survival game without maintenance and resource management. Even in solo play, the game expects players to create their own priorities rather than follow a constant chain of objectives.

For a more structured medieval settlement experience with survival and village progression, first-person medieval survival builders like Medieval Dynasty offer a calmer alternative, while Conan Exiles is the stronger fit for combat, fantasy monsters, religious powers, and competitive server play.

Conan Exiles FAQ

What is the current name of Conan Exiles on Steam?

The current Steam storefront name is Conan Exiles Enhanced. The previous Unreal Engine 4 version is available as Conan Exiles Legacy, but it is limited to existing content, private servers, and single-player play.

Is Conan Exiles Enhanced a separate game?

Enhanced is the current upgraded Steam version of Conan Exiles rather than a wholly separate survival game. It includes the Unreal Engine 5 upgrade and quality-of-life changes, while the older build remains selectable as Conan Exiles Legacy.

Does Conan Exiles have co-op?

Yes. The PC version supports online co-op, private servers, dedicated servers, and solo play. A dedicated or rented server is preferable when a group wants a persistent world that does not depend on the host being online.

Does Isle of Siptah come with the base game?

No. Isle of Siptah is a paid expansion. Enhanced connects its map with the Exiled Lands, but access to the island, its vaults, creatures, building sets, and related systems still requires ownership of the expansion.

Does Conan Exiles support mods on PC?

Yes. Steam Workshop integration and mod support are available on PC. Enhanced includes refreshed mod support, although individual mods may need updates before they work correctly with a new game version.

Is Conan Exiles better for solo or multiplayer?

Both formats are viable. Solo play gives you control over settings and lets you focus on building, exploration, dungeons, and thrall management. Multiplayer adds clan cooperation, persistent settlements, PvE communities, server politics, and the possibility of PvP siege warfare.