Conan Unconquered video showcases rotting corpses and an angry god

YouTube

Conan Unconquered is a survival RTS being developed by Petroglyph that pits the mighty barbarian and his armies against endless waves of enemies. Wes took a preview build for a spin last month and found it "derivative" but "clearly competent," and particularly appealing because of its built-in support for co-op play, which enables two players to work together to build and defend a shared stronghold.

With release set to take place on May 30, publisher Funcom has released a new video showing off a few minutes of gameplay. Much of it looks like fairly standard RTS stuff: Resources must be extracted and managed, and pursuing research trees will open the door to new units and abilities. But there are a few more unusual elements to it as well.

Conan himself, along with other heroes, makes a personal appearance in the game and can actually handle early-game troubles on his own. But sooner or later things will start to get out of hand, and you'll have to start building and upgrading a stronghold. That eventually leads to a problem: As you massacre hundreds (thousands?) of invaders, their bodies will pile up and putrefy, leading to disease that can spread and debilitate your forces. In case that's not bad enough, those rotting corpses are also fodder for necromancers, who can reanimate their skeletons into new enemy forces.

On the upside, pursuing a certain research path will give Conan the ability to call upon the avatar of Mitra, a massive embodiment of a Hyborian deity that can crush people and buildings beneath its feet. Downside: It's not too particular about whose people and buildings it stops into paste—human concerns are beneath the notice of the gods—and so you might want to watch where you aim this bad boy once he's fired up.

Your heroes will also have the opportunity to explore the game world and battle temple guardians for artifacts that will grant unique powers. Overall, I think Conan Unconquered looks promising: Not necessarily revolutionary, but with enough going on to keep things interesting. It's available for pre-purchase from Steam for $30/£25/€30.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.