Conan Exiles is an open-world survival game set in Robert E. Howard's Hyborian age. You start naked and condemned in a desert and end, if you stay with it, running a fortress staffed by people you dragged there in chains.
It is the most explicitly brutal survival game on this site, and it is also one of the better base builders in the genre.
What you actually do
Gather, craft, build, and expand northward as your gear lets you survive colder and more dangerous regions. The map is laid out as a difficulty gradient running south to north, so progression is geographic rather than scripted.
The building system is the standout. It is flexible, structurally sensible, and people build genuinely impressive castles in it.
Thralls, which are the real progression
You knock NPCs unconscious, bind them, drag them home and break them on a Wheel of Pain. Fighters then follow you into combat. Crafters improve everything made at their station.
A named tier-four armourer produces better armour from the same recipe than anyone else can. Hunting specific crafters is the most efficient mid-game activity there is, and it is entirely missable if nobody tells you.
Combat and corruption
Combat is stamina-based melee with dodges and combos, competent rather than exceptional.
Sorcery, added later, costs corruption, which permanently reduces your health and stamina until cleansed. Corrupting attributes deliberately upgrades their perks, so corruption is a trade rather than only a penalty.
Solo, co-op and servers
Single player works and most settings are adjustable. Official PvP servers are harsh, with offline raiding and the usual consequences.
Most people play solo or on a small private server, and the game is considerably better that way.
Where new players struggle
Water, first. Then the temperature gradient, which blocks northward progress without the right armour.
The other one is building somewhere impractical. You will walk your base route thousands of times, so proximity to water, clay and iron matters more than the view.
Time commitment
Reaching the north and clearing the endgame dungeons takes 60 to 100 hours. Building projects are open-ended.
The Purge
A meter fills as you play, and when it triggers, a wave attacks wherever you built. It is the mechanic that punishes beautiful, indefensible bases.
Thralls placed on walls do most of the defending, which is another reason the Authority attribute pays for itself. In single player the Purge can be disabled entirely, and plenty of people who mainly want to build do exactly that.
Dungeons worth doing
The Dregs and the Well of Skelos are accessible early and teach the format. The Unnamed City is the real difficulty spike, full of dragons and undead, and it drops the best crafting materials in the game.
The Warmaker's Sanctuary and the Black Keep are the endgame. None of them are required to finish, and all of them are where the good gear is.
Guides
The beginner's guide covers the first hours in the desert. The builds guide covers attributes, corruption and thralls, the walkthrough runs the south-to-north progression, and weapons, maps and the tier list cover the rest.
