In Conan Exiles starts the third and final part of the big “Age of Sorcery” update. The developers have given MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus a preview and now it’s clear: a step into the future of survival MMOs is being taken.
I’ve been observing for a while now that the future of survival games and MMOs is going in a certain direction. A direction that is increasingly linking the two areas together.
The upcoming Dune game started it off. Dune: Awakening combines Survival with MMORPG and almost makes a new genre out of both together. Here survival elements and social interactions play an equal role.
Coreborn, penned by a German studio, wants to be a new survival MMO that has as much influence as WoW had on MMORPGs. The ambitions are clear: to offer many players a common survival world that is not just a sandbox, but is alive and can be shaped by the players.
Now Conan Exiles is also taking a step in that direction. Age of Sorcery introduced magic while revamping the entire game. The story is now continued in the third act, but the features really amaze me.
As a reminder, this is the Age of Sorcery:
Survival MMO Conan Exiles presents the new expansion in detail in the video
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The new journey is like a free class system
With Part 3 of Age of Sorcery, the journey will be completely revised. Journey is an exciting feature in Conan Exiles. Various tasks lead you through the world and give you clues as to what you can do next. A kind of guide if you don’t know what to do next.
You’ll always be shown what quest you can pursue next, giving you an incentive to explore more of the world or expand your base. So far, the journey has been quite linear and basically takes you through the game from start to finish.
Instead of always showing individual steps, Chapter 3 divides the milestones into individual, meaningful areas. So you can clearly choose which path you want to follow:
In the trailer, the developers show what it looks like:
Conan Exiles: The new travel system explained
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The system itself remains similar and still rewards you with experience and sometimes cosmetic items. It’s designed for beginners to get into the game easier and get a feel for what they can do.
Nevertheless, the division into specific areas is a way for players to gain expertise in an area via a skill-based system and thus take on a specific role – like in an RPG.
You can switch at any time or dedicate yourself to another “profession”, but it can make sense to distribute the roles, especially in co-op play. The new travel system makes this much easier.
The story is full of NPCs – they even have quests!
The real hook of the new season is the story about the magician Mek-Kamoses, who brought magic back to the banished lands in the first place. He is preparing new rituals that you should help him with.
As is typical for Conan, things get rough with the blood sacrifice of a young princess who defends herself with all her might and the fight against other evil magicians. The idea here is that a huge red beam tells you all over the map: something is happening over there.
Mek-Kamoses himself will then give you quests that will guide you through the Season 3 story and the new dungeon, where you will learn more about the new systems. It’s not really a lot of quests, but it’s still a link between story and gameplay that sandbox survival games don’t typically have.
You can even earn rewards such as new armor from Mek-Kamoses and his followers using special items. A bit like the grind in modern MMORPGs.
By the way: the solar eclipse plays a central role in the new story. That’s why it replaces the night in the game with an eerie, red glow.
Build your own teammate
As a third major feature, the developers introduced me to the golem construction. Instead of expanding the actual magic further, in Season 3 you have the opportunity to produce golems via a workshop.
This works via individual components such as torso, arms and legs, which you have to put together and then animate. The trick here is that you can choose what exactly you want your golem to be able to do, at least to a certain extent:
Golems work like slaves. They can follow you, fight for you, and guard areas. However, they have a significantly higher life pool. In return, you cannot heal them. They dish out good and take a lot, but when they break, you have to build a new one.
Along with the Golems there are new “Blood Crystals” from rare enemies that you need to animate them. Season 3 also brings a new Battle Pass and new shop items. You can already watch most of it live on the test server.
Conan Exiles takes the first step into the future of survival MMOs
While the changes look small on their own, I think the direction is clear. Survival games continue to evolve towards MMOs and what many MMORPGs fail to deliver: an open world for many at once.
In conversation, the developers told me that they see it similarly to me. Big survival MMOs are the logical progression of the genre, which is now slowly becoming possible as technology advances.
A very good thing, I think, because the genre still has a lot of room for improvement:
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