(Just to clarify: I play exclusively in solo mode, on PC.)
I picked up Conan Exiles Enhanced not long ago, and I’m having a fantastic time.
I’m still early in the map, in the desert zone surrounded by Darfari, and I love heading out on exploration runs with my hyena, my bow, my javelin and my shield. The thrall capture system is really cool. I actually have a specific goal in my playthrough: catch all the Disciples of Asura from the back of their cave to build a themed waypoint village. Too bad for them that Asura isn’t a playable religion, so it’ll be Mitra instead, since the game allows them to serve him, even if I’m not sure that’s entirely lore-accurate.
I’ve become so immersed in the universe that I regularly research the lore, picked up an old Conan comic at a flea market, I’m discovering Frank Frazetta’s artwork (an absolute treat for the eyes), and I’ve been subscribing to dedicated YouTube channels. It’s rare that a game transports me like this.
What strikes me about the Conan universe is its deeply Nietzschean soul. The “will to power” perfectly captured by the line “I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.” The film carries that same spirit, with the camel scene drawn straight from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, for those who know. The game stays true to that philosophy.
The music, what can I say about the music? I never tire of it. It wraps you in a sense of grandeur and heroism, carrying you across these landscapes with the feeling of being thrust into a world beyond yourself, where gods drink wine and laugh as they watch us die over and over.
Honestly, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love Conan Exiles Enhanced.
Some feedback from a brand new player
With the fresh breath of life that the Enhanced version brings, I figured this might be a good moment to share my experience as a newcomer. Some of these things have probably been there since the original version and may never change, but just in case:
-- Bugs –
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Companion animals moving sideways
My animal companions sometimes move laterally while running, like crabs. It looks visually odd and is clearly an animation bug. -
Bodies stuck on invisible ledges
Sometimes when you kill an enemy from a height, their body stops mid-fall as if landing on an invisible ledge. You’re then forced to climb up to loot the corpse. -
Shalebacks and the meat
Despite being herbivores, my Shalebacks keep stealing all the meat from the food chest. Quite the diet for a herbivore. -
Thumbnails not updated for the Enhanced version
Some item thumbnails don’t seem to have been updated to match the new Enhanced textures. For example, the crocodile with the Yamatan skin still shows a green thumbnail, while in-game it now sports a beautiful rose copper tone. It looks great in its new version, but the thumbnail doesn’t do it justice. -
Hanuman’s Grotto: removed content?
I discovered a cave with a god named Hanuman deep inside, surrounded by praying ghosts. Looking into what to do there, I learned that you used to be able to obtain monkeys, gorillas, even yetis as companions, but that this apparently isn’t possible anymore since the Enhanced version. Can anyone confirm? That’s too bad if so, it was a great idea. -
Freed NPC stuck in T-pose
About one in four times when I free a slave from a cage in a Darfari camp, the NPC comes out completely frozen in a T-pose, arms spread wide. It looks like a 3D model straight out of a modelling software. Impossible to interact with: no dialogue, no inventory access, absolutely nothing. -
Companion stops following after loading the game
Every time I load the game, my companion stops following me automatically. If you forget to check, you can cover quite a distance before realizing they stayed behind at base. I’ll let you imagine the situations that follow, especially when you charge into a camp only to realize you’re completely alone. -
Visual bug: distorted geometric shadows
I noticed a visual bug on a piece of scenery I can’t quite identify: when a light source passes through it, it projects a distorted shadow resembling a geometric mesh that convulses continuously. -
Shadow clipping at sunrise or sunset
When the sun is low on the horizon, I’ve noticed clipping on the shadows of small sand formations on the ground. It’s a minor visual bug but visible as soon as the light skims the surface, and it convulses here too.
-- Controller (Xbox) / UI –
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Controller navigation
I very often lose track of the cursor when I’m in a crafting station or sorting through chests. I sometimes have no idea where I am in the menu, forcing me to exit and come back in. It happens all the time. When navigating to the crafting plan selection for instance, the highlight indicating where the cursor is becomes invisible, and it often ends up at the very bottom of the crafting list. -
Object rotation in the dye station
In the dye station, it doesn’t seem possible to rotate the item in 3D with the controller to see what you’re painting from all angles. Navigation in this interface is generally quite difficult with a controller. -
Managing equipped tools and weapons
When you have a tool or weapon equipped, you first have to go through the shortcut to unequip it before you can swap it for another in your inventory. It’s a needless back-and-forth: being able to swap directly from the inventory would be appreciated. -
Unable to hide the current journey step
I haven’t found a way to hide the journey step info box displayed in the top right of the screen. It doesn’t seem possible to deselect or temporarily hide it, but for those who prefer a clean HUD, this would be a welcome option.
-- Combat / Weapons –
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Companion placement
It can occasionally be problematic and quite punishing depending on the situation. Would allowing them to be passed through during combat only, or reducing their collision zone, help? I’m genuinely not sure, just throwing it out there as a lead. -
Javelin doesn’t return to its radial menu slot
I love playing with the javelin, but when you retrieve it from the ground or from an enemy’s body, it doesn’t automatically return to its radial menu slot. You have to go find it in your inventory every time and manually put it back. It breaks the combat flow. This is probably due to the durability difference between the retrieved javelin and the ones remaining in your stack, preventing them from stacking back together. A suggestion for the devs: create a dedicated throwing weapon category, which would work similarly to arrows. Once a weapon of that type is assigned to the radial menu, the slot would pull directly from all available copies in your inventory, consuming them in order of wear, most worn first. -
Javelin combo: second hit misses most enemies
During a javelin combo, the second hit consistently goes over the heads of most creatures, except the largest ones or when you’re standing below them. The hitbox seems poorly calibrated for standard-sized targets. In practice, this hit is not only useless in most situations, but it also leaves enough time for the enemy to counter-attack, making it genuinely dangerous to use in certain contexts. -
Spears and pikes can’t be used with a shield
While the javelin can be held alongside a shield, spears and pikes cannot. Too bad, since historically this is a perfectly legitimate combination. Am I still bitter about Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which already took away this spear + shield combo from me? Very much so.
-- Customization / Cosmetics –
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Javelin has no skin
Unlike spears and pikes which have plenty of skins and themed variants, the javelin has none at all. You end up with a solid combat weapon but zero visual customization. -
No equipment preview
There’s no preview menu for outfits, armor or weapons, or am I missing something? It’s a real issue: I recently crafted 6 different maces just to see which skin I liked, and the others are gathering dust in a chest. I had to do the same thing with shields last night. A visual preview before crafting would be very welcome. -
Low-quality textures on some assets
I’ve noticed some really disappointing textures on certain elements, particularly the wooden poles of all “Black Hand Tent” assets. And some taxidermy animals look like wax figurines. For a game that otherwise offers stunning environments, it stands out. -
War paint timer
Looking into the war paint mechanic, I discovered that since Age of Sorcery – Chapter 1, war paints became purely decorative: they no longer give any stat bonuses. You’d expect them to be permanent then, since they have no gameplay impact. Yet they still have a timer, and they even disappear from thralls. In principle, purely cosmetic elements like this should stay until you decide to remove them yourself. It makes little sense otherwise, especially since thralls look very similar to one another: their faces are quite repetitive, and giving them war paints is a great way to tell them apart. Watching them fade away is therefore doubly unfortunate. -
Unable to dye shields
The game already lets you dye clothing and armor, which is great. It’s all the more unfortunate then that you can’t do the same with shields, which are very visible both in combat and exploration.
-- Camp Management / Progression –
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Moving camp / managing thralls between bases
Being limited to 1 or 2 active companions is understandable. However, not being able to move your camp or send your thralls from one base to another through some kind of menu is really missed. I’m dreading the moment I leave the desert to build elsewhere and figure out how to bring my people with me. How do other players handle this? -
Chest organization and storage
When you return from an exploration run, there’s sometimes that sinking feeling that you’re going to spend time tidying up before you can head out again. I’d love to be able to assign a theme to each chest and automatically send the corresponding items into it in one move. A distinctive icon or appearance per chest would also help at a glance. And why limit storage to chests? Storage furniture like wardrobes or cabinets would fit much better in a carefully built base. As it stands, all of this breaks the flow a little. -
Free placement of building pieces
I understand the technical constraints behind the building system, but being able to place elements freely even when highlighted in red would be appreciated, at the player’s own risk regarding stability. It’s the kind of freedom you find in other games of the genre. -
A thrall market with NPCs
I love replayability in games like this, and it’s too bad you can’t sell thralls to an NPC in exchange for gold or silver coins. A basic thrall market would add a real economic dimension to the game and give more purpose to capturing. You could even imagine a bounty hunting system, with specific capture objectives to complete for a reward. -
Automatic food and water consumption
I’d like to suggest a quality-of-life mechanic: being able to designate a waterskin and a stack of food in your inventory as automatic consumables, without assigning them to the radial menu, so that once your hunger or thirst drops below a certain threshold, the game uses them automatically. The idea isn’t an auto-heal system, just a way to avoid repeatedly opening your inventory for such a basic and repetitive action.
-- The Bazaar –
- Catalogue rotation is too slow
I find it really unfortunate that the shop doesn’t give access to the full existing catalogue at all times. The Bazaar rotation is too slow and too limited. I love your decoration items and skins, I’ve already caved and bought everything on the main page.
Here’s why it matters concretely: I’m currently in the desert zone at the start of the game, and certain skins, building themes or animal appearances suit it far better than anywhere else. Knowing myself, once I’ve progressed enough to leave the desert and settle in another biome, I’m unlikely to buy desert-themed content. I’ll be somewhere else with different surroundings and different wants. And the same problem will repeat in the next biome, and the one after: if the rotation timing doesn’t line up with where I am in the game, the purchase window is simply missed. It’s a disappointment both as a buyer and as a player.
-- Gameplay / Balance –
- Sorcery and human sacrifice
I picked up the sorcery book and staff, but I’ve come to understand that progressing in that branch requires sacrificing humans on a torture bench, and that raises two issues for me.
The first is personal: some games offer options to disable disturbing content, not out of fear but simply by preference. Spiders, dismemberment, violence against children are common examples. I have a similar reluctance towards this sacrificial gameplay. If anyone knows a way around this mechanic, I’d love to hear it.
The second is tied to my RP: I play as a servant of Mitra, and engaging in sacrificial practices sits very uncomfortably with that. It would be easier if sorcery were optional content, but it offers gameplay elements that are hard to ignore. I’m curious how other players handle this lore and RP conflict.
- The Purge system
I haven’t tried it yet, I’ll admit I keep putting it off until I feel ready. Looking into it, I learned that the purge used to trigger unpredictably, and thinking about it, it’s too bad that’s no longer the case. It added tension and life to the world, and it would force me to actually engage with that gameplay axis.
If this feature ever came back, I’d be all for purges triggering while I’m away, that’s actually what would make it exciting. I’d just have one condition: that thralls knocked out in combat be put out of action rather than permanently lost, with no timer to revive them. Coming back from an exploration run to find your tribe wiped out because you weren’t there to intervene would be really punishing. On the other hand, having your goods and treasures looted if you haven’t properly prepared your camp and thralls? That’s fair game.
- Well Trained vs War Party: too binary a choice
The choice between the Well Trained and War Party perks feels particularly unfair as currently designed. It would have made more sense like this: Well Trained applies when you have one active companion, and deactivates automatically when you have two. There are situations where you want two companions, for example to level up thralls or animals faster for base defense, or to prepare for a purge, without permanently giving up the Well Trained bonus in other situations.
-- Creative Suggestions –
- Gods should intervene in the world
I play exclusively in solo and have no interest in multiplayer, and I realize I’ll probably never see the gods in my playthrough. That observation leads me to an idea: farming the same faction should have consequences. Right now I’m hitting the Darfari hard, and if Yog doesn’t intervene, his followers are going to lose faith. This could draw the wrath of their god, who would step into the world to seek revenge. I’d love to have to hide in a cave and wait for his anger to cool, or have him try to crush me or send minions after me. The idea of not knowing when that wrath might strike is exciting in itself. It would add a real sense of permanent tension to exploration.
To protect yourself, you could invest in a religious altar, either through an invisible barrier crafted using Manifestations of Zeal, appeasing the offended god through specific actions, or by invoking your own god in response, which could lead to full-on titan battles on the map! The game could also hint that a summoning is underway somewhere, giving you a limited time to intervene and stop it, by watching the sky for instance, a concentration of storms or supernatural phenomena marking the location.
On the same subject, I don’t understand why summoning Mitra requires sacrificing a T4 priest. That cost makes sense on a multiplayer server, but in solo it’s way too steep: safe to say I’ll never see it happen.
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Tamed animals are completely static
The animals you tame and place in your base don’t move at all. They’re completely static. Human thralls benefit from a “thriving” option in the server settings that lets them roam freely, but animals have no such option. I’d love for them to have their own routine too, and move around their zone via pathfinding. -
Traps to capture and pit world bosses against each other
A bit of a wild idea: being able to build traps or cages to capture world bosses, a Skull crocodile, a giant spider, and make them fight each other on demand. You could even imagine capturing their souls through a dedicated instrument granted by Jhebbal Sag, to then house them in taxidermy animals or clay models placeable in the world. And for multiplayer players, it could be fun to release a captured boss into an enemy’s base. It would be genuinely entertaining and add a great layer of replayability. -
Thralls from other humanoid species
Browsing through the Conan Exiles bestiary, you realize just how rich it is. I’d love to be able to capture thralls from other humanoid species to diversify themed bases. A Fishman bartender for instance (with him around, you’d never die of thirst). I also discovered the Grey Ones, I think they look incredibly cool and was hoping to recruit one as a companion, but apparently that’s not possible. Too bad. -
A “conquest” mode: my personal fantasy
Taking things further than the purge: I’d love to see a conquest gameplay mode where each PvE or PvP faction could claim and control geographic zones. A Darfari camp could fall into the hands of the Dogs of the Desert, and so on. It’s just an idea in the air to imagine a more living world, but I’ll put it out there.
That’s my feedback as a brand new solo player. I hope some of these points resonate, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts, especially about Hanuman’s Grotto and whether there’s a way around the sorcery mechanic. Here’s hoping the game keeps up this great momentum in its modernization. Thanks for reading!
