Conan Exiles Trailer Focuses On Survival Gameplay

The new Conan Exiles trailer shows a survival-sandbox game set in a world of hard choices, lots of gore and large muscled men with even larger broadswords.

Back in February, Conan Exiles was first teased with some screenshots that were meant to satisfy the appetites of people looking for some hack-n-slash fun, especially those that wanted to not just kill their enemies but also break them down into pieces small enough to be transported by the USPS. "You see heads coming off, you see arms coming off, you see blood, you see gore, you see dents in armor," were the promises from Funcom in a press release. A while ago a gameplay trailer came out that revealed some, but not too much, and what followed over the last six months was silence.

The trailer released today shows a much more polished game compared to the one teased six months ago. Graphics have been improved a bit, though they can't be matched with other AAA titles, and it promises to be a fast-paced, fun game that will allow players to do more than just mow down NPCs. It reminds a little of ARK in that players start the game naked and scared and work their way up from there, collecting resources, arming themselves and ultimately building up a small settlement. Between these bits of husbandry players will be exloring the map and the dungeons within.

The trailer is doing a great job of showing all the things players will be able to do when the game launches, but maybe gamers should not lose sight of the lessons of the No Man's Sky drama too soon, especially since Exiles is not the first time Funcom has tried to set up shop in Hyboria. Their first strike was a MMO called Age of Conan, which was similarly hyped and ended up being badly plagued with bugs and gameplay issues. It struggled on the free-to-play market for a bit until dying with a cry back in 2011. With the dev team already moving Exiles' publication date from summer 2016 to Sept. 13 to coming January also might not inspire confidence. Similarly, their change of heart on whether the will have a single-player campaign or not could be cause for concern.

Conan Exiles launches on January 31 for PC and spring 2017 for Xbox One.