First, lets just get this out of the way. Yes, I have 600 hours in this game. It is one of my most played games on Steam. No, I do not recommend you play it.

I have a very love/hate relationship with this game. Any Overwatch fans will know exactly what I mean. The developers of Conan Exiles seem to actively hate their own game. I played it for years with no issues, even hosting my own server, but the recent "Age of" updates have completely destroyed that. These are massive updates that completely overhaul certain aspects of the game which, while good on paper, make you have to RESTART.

Your army that you spent hundreds of hours gathering and customizing? Gone. Your fortress that you spent hundreds of hours just collecting materials for, nevermind actually building? Gone. Your stats that you grinded every precious experience point for another hundred hours? Gone. All of it. And they've done this twice already with a third one on the way. Why the hell should I even play this game when theyre just going to nuke all my progress every time? Yes you can continue your old world in the "Age of" whatever the hell update but it is a shell of its former self. Either with your warriors stats being completely gutted because the perks you got for them no longer exist, or your fortress is completely deleted because they updated that location on the map. This is all not to mention the weirdly shoehorned in monetization they introduced in the first "Age of" update. A cash shop and a battle pass. In a survival game.

Tbh, I don't really have much to say about this. As a fellow gamer, youre probably already recoiling at it as the whole community did when it dropped. Conan Exiles used to have a fairly decent DLC system where you could buy themed packs that would give you new building materials, weapons, armor, etc. It was mildly pay to win as the best weapons are locked behind it but the best weapons you get in the base game aren't that inferior to them. But then they did away with that and introduced this crap that nobody asked for, everyone hates, and breaks all the time rendering your PURCHASED ITEMS useless until they fix whatever the broke that day.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part which hopefully will help you understand my frustration. The bugs! This game is a glitchy unfinished mess. Falling through the floor, frequent random crashes, two torches close together giving you 20 fps, the ability to build under the map but not delete it rendering that spot forever impossible to place anything else on, armies of T-Posing bandits, and even more random crashes. Just to name a few. And every single update it gets worse. "Age of" updates dont just brick your saves, they make the game actively worse. And these updates came years later. Imagine if Bethesda updated Fallout 4 with a combat overhaul, gave you no option to say no, broke EVERY mod including ones that are no longer updated, and actively made the game worse. (...wait.) People would be losing their ♥♥♥♥! Now imagine they did it 3 more times.

I have a love/hate relationship with this game. I loved it back when the devs had mostly moved on from it and it was a somewhat stable experience. Now its up there with Ark in its level of bugginess and not only do devs seem to not care, they actively silence people pleading for them to stop.

Do NOT buy this game. There are so many better options out there.

3.5/10