If there’s one thing that many survival games lack, it’s life. To me, one of the drawbacks of the survival genre compared to MMORPGs is how dead and lifeless the world is. And no, I don’t mean what happens to your character when you don’t eat/drink/find shelter. In MMORPGs, when you go to a town or settlement, there are NPCs milling about, living their own lives with no relation to yours. I often get sidetracked by snippets of conversation I hear as I pass by. Aside from other players and mobs and perhaps a lucky few quest givers, there are rarely other NPCs giving survival games that lived-in feel.
Conan Exiles, however, is taking even more steps to change that. First it was taverns; now it is living settlements and companions.
Sitting down with Funcom Game Director Dennis Douthett and Community Manager Andy Benditt, I got to tour through the upcoming Age of Heroes update ahead of the big announcement today. And as teased, two major features of this update are living settlements and companions.
Remember the lifeless world described above? Now, imagine walking throughout your base and bumping into various followers wandering about, living their own lives independent of player instruction — eating, sleeping, and attending to their work on their own.
And yes, the new mechanics and gameplay features are all free; Age of Heroes is the first update where the battlepass has been permanently removed.
When is this update? Age of Heroes will arrive in October on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox X|S, Xbox One, and Xbox Game Pass, but the beta just opened up today.
It’s alive!! Breathing life into settlements
The first major feature coming in Age of Heroes is living settlements. Previously, Conan Exiles introduced taverns. Here, special or fighter followers (warrior, archer, and dancers) that were placed in a player settlement could wander into the tavern, take a seat, and appear to hobnob with each other. (Sadly, no random brawls!) This added an element of life to at least that one building.
Benditt told me that in Age of Heroes, “every single follower, every single character that a player could have in their base, is now their own individual character that can be placed out in the world.” Crafters, which used to be basically items that were socketed into static workbenches, now have the same abilities to meander around and meet their own needs.
These characters will do more than just mill around. Benditt described how each character will have a hidden set of need parameters hardwired into them. “Everyone has their own needs and priorities that they need to take care of individually, including earing, sleeping, resting, and — if need be — fighting,” he said.
To make it all look even more authentic, Funcom has added a number of new idle animations, so followers could randomly access stations they are assigned to/are most relevant to and look as if they are truly working.
Another change that follows along with this change is that even the crafters can now potentially take up arms to defend themselves against threats. Benditt emphasized to me that these behaviors run in the background; it was apparently important for Funcom that these follower needs do not interfere with player gameplay. As such, players won’t have to hunt down the various crafters and move them to workbenches to receive the crafter’s bonus. Instead, the bonus will settlement wide and just accessing the bench itself will yield the bonus.
Additionally, players won’t have to do anything to meet the followers needs. The followers do not actually use or remove any food resources when they fulfill their hunger needs, so players won’t have to restock food or fuel for fires. That said, unless you want to go the route of the Emperor’s New Clothes, you’ll have to physically clothe your followers with real items, even if they can subsist on imaginary tea parties.
In the end, I am excited that this feature will really increase immersion. This will specifically mitigate the lifeless feel that plagues the genre and make Conan Exiles more enticing to play. I have to agree with Benditt’s take; as he put it, “Adding that extra layer of immersion is going to change things for a lot of folks that really want to be invested in their base and want to create cool stuff. […] And we plan on expanding on those systems even more!” Douthett then summed it up, mirroring my sentiments and giving me even more hope for a more vibrant Conan Exiles future. He added (as one of my favorite quotes ever):
“The deeper we go with it, the more it feels like a real world. And that’s really the goal at the end of the day.”
One question I had about all this is whether players can still give scripted commands to followers – they same way some mods do. Douthett explained that meeting needs will override scripting. “Their normal behavior will take priority,” he explained. “So if they want to go somewhere and do a job or sleep or eat, that’s going to be the thing that they prefer to do.” That’s the regular living thralls who will keep going about their lives, of course, but Douthett clarified that the fighters, archers, and dancers who are your combat guards will keep doing their jobs they are assigned to without wandering about aimlessly.
“Conquering” companions
The second main feature of Age of Heroes is the new companion system. I admit, with this being Conan and all, my first through when Benditt mentioned companions flitted momentarily over to Firefly/Serenity. But companions won’t be like those — at least, not that have been revealed so far!
Benditt described companions for Conan Exiles as a new type of recruitable follower whose loyalty players can earn. This is done by completing a series of new scripted and voice-acted quests. One big difference with companions vs. current followers is that the perks that these companions will grant players as they develop are not set. Instead, they will be determined by the choices that players make throughout the quest arc.
Benditt noted that Age of Heroes will launch with two companions, and more will be released in future chapters. (He also shared that plans are in the works for a dog companion!) Benditt introduced one companion releasing in Age of Heroes, Liu Fei, a sorcerer from Khitai. Currently the man is trapped in a plant and needs the player’s help to get free. But is everything how it seems? Folks will have to play through the quest to find out.
What happens if you lose your companion somehow? Benditt explained that players can go back and redo the quest to re-recruit the companion. “We understand that losing followers that you’ve spent a lot of time and invested in to make them awesome or to train them up is very painful,” he acknowledged. Hey, maybe this will give players a chance to make different choices and uncover different perks!
Tidbits and building
Of course, a new Conan Exiles update needs to also have something new to wear and build with. It’s a universal law. There will be new Corinthian Stargazer and Corinthian Academic outfits. The horses also get some lovely new threads to wear, and the guild logo can be applied to them. The cosmetic items will be available on the bazaar.
The new building pieces, on the other hand, will expand the Argossian set. These include some latticed windows that can be stacked nearly indefinitely and an amazing two layer starry sky ceiling piece that is simply gorgeous. There’s also a great spiral staircase!
Players can expect Age of Heroes to release on all platforms in October. The devs noted that chapters will release every six months, but events and small content drops will happen in-between. Benditt shared that the next update will be a new version of the Dreggs dungeon (with new puzzles, new traps, a new path, and such). There will also be a limited-time event coming up soon, so stay tuned for more!
In the survival genre, there are at least 1001 ways to die, and MJ Guthrie is bound to experience them all — in the interests of sharing them with you! The Survivalist chronicles life and death struggles against all forms of apocalypse, outbreak, mutation, weather, and prehistoric wildlife. And let’s not forget the two-legged enemies! Tune in here and on OPTV to see who feeds better: MJ or the Death Counter.
