First off I’d just like to say that this topic isn’t meant to be a dig at the game or it’s story in any way- quite the opposite, I think the development team did a great job creating a world that felt interesting and deep and fun to inhabit. I’d say that it’s the main strength that sets it apart from other games in the survival genre, the fact that there’s lore to uncover and there’s a main quest line and there’s interesting NPCs to talk to.
The problem is simply that pretty much the entirety of the story and lore of the game was added years ago, and hasn’t been developed any further. I mean it’s been 5 years, and we still can’t actually find the serpent ring of Set, so technically the main quest line has a huge unresolved plot thread just sitting there unaddressed. (For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, there’s dialogue suggesting that we were going to go on an adventure for another artifact but for some reason it was never added.) The Isle of Siptah had cool cutscenes about the history of the island in the vaults, but it also had only one had NPC on the entire island you could talk to. The actual tower of Siptah, in the middle of the island, with the giant maelstrom around it, you would think that has to have some cool lore and story in it right? You finally battle your way inside, and it’s an empty room with a gacha system for unlocking items.
I understand that this a sandbox game, but what makes the game cool and unique is the world it’s set in-that is the literal sandbox. Mounts and sorcery and stuff like that are all really cool additions, they’re fun toys to play with inside the sandbox, but after 5 years of continuous development it seems like the sandbox should be bigger and nicer by now.
Just for a random example: when you first talk to the exiled Pirate Queen of the black hand, she tells you a bit about the black hand, she tells you that her first mate betrayed her, and she mentions the map room with a giant map with gems all over it. This is pretty good, and it sets stuff up- you learn a bit about the black hand, it points you in the direction of the map room and the main quest, solid, but as a player when I first hear all this I assume “Okay, I bet that if I go and kill her first mate and come back there’s some kind of reward, and I bet if I go to the map room and come back she’ll have new dialogue open up about it.”
Obviously, no. It’s a cool and well written character, it expands the setting a bit, but it just cycles through the same dialogue with no reactivity to anything the player does, as all of the characters have for 5 years. It seems like there’s a bit of story added to Mek-Kamoses in the age of sorcery, and the whole eclipse thing and just generally having stuff actually happening is all very cool, but it’s unclear if that all will even be accessible once the age ends and the game moves forward. If there’s no way for players to actually interact with this stuff at a later date, then the story and the setting are actually still not being developed over the long term in any way.
I actually am completely fine with the fact that Conan Exiles has a bit of a haphazard story structure, where you have to go all around the map finding lore stones and journals and talking to NPCs all over the map to get a clear picture of what’s going on. Games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring have proven that you can tell a really cool and engaging story that way, and this game has proven it too-but the story feels a bit half baked still, and even those Fromsoft games with their vague quests that you need to read a walkthrough to understand “do” actually have quests and the world actually reacts to the player somewhat.
At this point, after 5 years, it feels like we should have gotten that last dungeon or boss fight or whatever so that we can actually get the serpent ring of set and unite all the artifacts, and we should have a whole separate adventure of the same scale as the original main quest to play through. Or at the very least, if developing a whole new storyline is too much development time, just add in a little side adventure here and there and develop some of these characters. Throw in some more of those Siptah style cutscenes in the Exiled Lands, those were cool!
Again, the whole age of sorcery storyline is awesome, I’m elated that the game’s setting is being developed and new stuff is being added, but it seems like it’s being rolled out more as like a Fortnite season where it’ll be here for a bit and then it’ll be gone and then there’ll be the next thing-that’s not really “adding” anything if it’s just a temporary addition. I may be wrong, and actually somebody who plays the game after this age is over will still be able to experience that story, in which case that is great and actually a perfect model for expanding the game’s setting out and adding in new gameplay features and making money off it through the battlepass all at once.
I would really implore the development team to not forget about expanding the story and setting of Conan Exiles as they focus on expanding it’s systems and exploring new monetization models. You’ve really done a fantastic job adapting fantastic source material, and it’s a real strength of the game that has kept me coming back to it for years. I think you’ll be doing yourselves a disservice by dismissing it as unnecessary and pulling focus from other aspects of development going forward-the original Conan stories were written nearly a century ago and people still love them, that’s a secret weapon no other competing game has, and you clearly have talented writers on staff who can use it well.
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