Conan Exiles dev diary talks survival tactics, teases new footage

Funcom's slant on Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian is fast approaching its January 31 Early Access launch. Its latest developer diary explores how you'll go about staying alive in the incoming open-world survival game, teasing some new in-game footage along the way.

The game kicks off with your character cut down from a cross and left for dead in the desert, we're told in the following video. From there you'll want to find water, craft shelter and survival tools, and then set off hunting.

"Some of these creatures are obvious and somewhat mundane, like elephants which you'll be hunting for ivory," explains the game's creative director Joel Bylos below. "But then there's creatures that you'll need silver to defeat, and you'll need to go hunt those in the dark in the haunted places of Hyboria."

As you'll see there, capturing, torturing and enslaving Thralls is another big part of Conan Exiles' survival requirements—where detainees are strangely inclined to defend your headquarters in your absence thereafter. Imprisoning Thralls with specific traits means you become privy to their expertise; capturing blacksmiths, for example, means you gain access to that particular smith's weapon and armour sets.

Upon release, I hope this system is more sophisticated than simply collecting as many foot soldiers as possible, however how religion ties to the wider world does sound interesting at this stage.

I guess we'll find out either way come January 31 onwards, when Conan Exiles lands in Early Access.