Spice is life, and it's about to flow in full as Dune: Spice Wars prepares to leave Early Access. Developer Shiro Games and publisher Funcom announced plans to bring Version 1.0 to Steam in September 2023. There's also a release trailer to go along with the news. The new?? preview shows off more of the real-??time warfare and the various means of political sabotage at your disposal.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZJPQ2dRt-8

Dune: Spice Wars originally launched in Early Access on April 26, 2022. The 4X real-time strategy game tasks players with battling for control over Arrakis. Multiple factions—including House Atreides and House Harkonnen—are available along with key characters from Frank Herbert's novel. 

[caption id="attachment_399159" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Shiro Games[/caption]

Tremors

In addition to controlling spice resources and pulling off acts of subterfuge to expand, you'll need to watch out for sandworms. Ignoring wormsign is a great way to lose your spice harvesters and troops. The number of games featuring any form of giant worm management or warning system in place is shockingly low. We'll take what we can get and consider it a bonus if a quality RTS happens to be attached. 

The folks behind Dune: Spice Wars previously worked on Northgard, a strategy survival game based on Norse mythology. Northgard launched in 2018 and received its latest major update in April 2023. Like Northgard, players seem mostly positive on Spice Wars so far. Hopefully this sandworm will boast a similarly long post-launch tail. 

If you're looking for more on how this one came together, the devs have been fairly active in showing off concept art and other details.

The post Dune: Spice Wars leave?s Early Acc??ess this September appeared first on Destructoid.

This is My Dune... So clear off.

You wait decades for a brand-new Dune video game, and then two come along at once! Yes in addition to the 2022 strategy title Dune: Spice Wars, Funcom has released pre-alpha footage of an upcoming MMO set within the arrid planes of Arrakis: Dune: Awakening.

As demonstrated at yesterday's Game Awards, Dune: Awakening will see players the world over attempt to thrive, or merely survive, in the cut-throat dystopian world of Frank Herb?ert's iconic sci-fi series. Starting out as ??a desperate survivor wandering the hazardous horizons, players will guide their custom characters in a quest for shelter, water, defense, companionship, and the ultimate desire of the Arrakian world: Spice.

//www.youtube.com/watc??h?v=Ixq-y_r-lkE&?;ab_channel=Funcom

From there, savvy survivalists will be able to build and trade among their local community, gain favor of the ?Great Houses, build and equip an arsenal of weaponry, work with spice harvesting corporations, and build themselves up among the corporations and nobilit??y that holds fort over the lucrative lands. Of course, you might just get eaten by a sandworm on your first day �which honestly sounds like less work and perhaps the better option.

Funcom notes that it will roll out further trailers and gameplay overviews over the coming months, giving players a general overview of Dune: Awakening's gameplay, options, and features ahead of its official beta launch. A date for the beta was not announced, but we do know that Dune: Awakening is currently in development for PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X. So y?ou'd better get your house in ord??er.

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Scream for me, Cleveland!

The devil really does have all of the best tunes �And anybody who doubts this would do well to check out Funcom's sleeper hit of 2022 Metal: Hellsinger, which is not only celebrating hitting the one million sales mark, (and a Golden Joystick Award), but has also launched brand new ports on last-gen platforms PS4 and Xbox? One!

Developed by Swedish studio The Outsiders and released in September of this year, Metal: Hellsinger is a frenetic first-person-shooter that combines the explosive and chaotic action of the genre with the guitar-styled wailings of some of the metal scene's finest. Portrayin??g a lost soul monikered "The Unknown", players guide our hero through the bowels of ?the underworld in an effort to regain her lost voice.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFAFzl_Tr7s

Metal: Hellsinger's hook lies in its encouragement of the player to fight to the "natural rhythm of the universe" �shooting, dashing, melee attacking, and reloading to the beat of ??the game's soundtrack. Power-ups and bonus points are awarded for extended synchronization of soundtrack and action, with soundtrack vocals performed by such screechers as Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy), Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquility), Matt Heafy (Trivium), Randy Blythe (Lamb of God?), and Dennis Lyxzen (the Refused).

Launching on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X, it was thought that the PS4 and Xbox One ports of Metal: Hellsinger had been canceled. But it would appear that The Outsiders has managed to complete its work on the last-gen editions, bringing the boom-boom to the wide audience that the game deserves. In addition, a new update has launched on all platforms, offering a new "Archdevil" difficulty setting and adding a new Elite?? Seraph demon to the armies of the damne??d.

Metal: Hellsinger is available now on PlayStation, PC,?? and Xbox platforms.

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Spice world

Funcom lifted the lid on Dune: Awakening, an open-world survival MMO, at Ga??mescom Opening Night Live. While the trailer is cinematic, the first details sound like deviou?s fun.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZtoPo2Fpw

According to Funcom, you'll be able to "hunt for spice blooms and deploy your harvester, then protect it from opportunistic raiders and rival factions," with battles shifting "seamlessly from foot to vehi?cles and from ground to ornithopters in the sky."

The all-important Arraki??s will be shared with "thousands of players." Expect player-led factions, shelters, and even fortresses, set against the backdrop of spice and sandworms.

And in terms of source material, Funcom says this game "takes inspiration from both Frank Herbert's novels and Denis Villeneuve's Academy Award-winning film while exploring exciting new possibilities in the franchise." As someone who left the theater sad that it was already over, I'm ready for Dune: Part Two, and I'd be into a good video game adaptation, in theory. Survival MMOs can be a tough sell, though. That said, I'm far more open to this than, say, Conan Exiles. I can picture having?? a good time with the right group.

If you want to start scheming, there's a beta sign-up on the official site.

Dune: Awakening is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

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Player Toxicity Expected

Funcom has released a new trailer for its upcoming doomsday shooter Metal: Hellsinger �the new video features the unmistakable v??ocals of Serj ??Tankian, long-time frontman of metal band System of a Down. Tankian joins a roster of metal legends that will soundtrack the next-gen shooter's violent chaos.

"What can you even say! We ha?ve so many System of a Down fans in the studio, adding Serj Tankian to our already incredible roster of vocalists feels unreal," said David Goldfarb of developer The Outsiders. "He completely killed the track and made it his own in a way only Serj could. We are so excited and can’t wait to see everyone playing!"

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=vig4_lsrpto

As FPS fans will immediately note, Metal: Hellsinger features the typically apocalyptic vibe of the genre's roots, founded in titles such as Doom, Hexen, Quake, and Heretic. In a fun new twist on the classic first-person gameplay, however, players will be rewarded for their ability to run 'n' gun to the beat of the game's bass-pounding score, chaining together combos and meaty acts of destruction in time with the music �a gimmick similarly explored to solid effect in 2021 release BPM: Bullets per Minute.

Tankian joins a horn-throwing roster of composers that already includ??es Arch Enemy's Alissa White-Gluz, Trivium's Matt Heafy, and the dulcet tones of Lamb of God's Randy Blythe. More artists are expected to be announced in the near future. It feels as though Mike Patton should most definitely be here, but the Faith No More/Fantoma?s frontman is currently taking a well-earned sabbatical from work, so that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

Metal: Hellsinger is currently in development for PS5??, PC, and Xbox Series X.

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Renegade of Spice

Since the release of Denis Villeneuve's fab Dune adaptation in 2021, it seems that several game studios are looking into developing their own digital takes of Frank Herbert's literary universe. Last month saw the release of RTS title Dune: Spice Wars, and it seems that Funcom also has an open-world adventure planned, se??t upo??n the acrid and hazardous planet of Arrakis.

The survivalist title is currently in its most preliminary stages, with Funcom currently at the hiring stage for the project. The job listings see the publisher staffing up a whole team, with positions open for artists, game designers, coders, and even marketing specialists. The site also offers us two pieces of concept art along with a preliminary CGI render pulled from the early design documents, which set the mood for what will pr?obably be a fairly morose and solemn release.

Funcom, of course, has experience in barren-world adventure titles, having published similar large-scale survival games such as the brutal and unforgiving Conan: Exiles. Dune itself has quite the pedigree in video gaming, having released authentic, compelling, and genre-defining titles such as Westwood Studios' 1992 classic Dune II: Battle for Arrakis. With its sullen fantasy worlds, strange menagerie of creatures, and cruel, backstabbing politics, Dune is custom-made for a varie?ty of gaming genres, and hopefully, Funcom's new open world project will capture the mood and intrigue of its acclaimed source ??material.

Dune: Spice Wars is available now on PC (via Steam)

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Fight for spice and sand

The latest video game adaptation of the Dune universe will be playable this month. Real-time strategy game Dune: Spice Wars wil??l launch into early access on Steam on April 26, 2022.

Developer Shiro Games and Funcom announced the news today, alongside another playable faction in the strategy game: the Fremen. If you've seen or read Dune, you're familiar with the?? Fremen. They're the people who call the harsh desert planet Arrakis home.

Fremen move better across open desert and are less likely to attract sandworms. They'll also be better at allying with the neutral Sietches. Arra?kis is home turf for the Fremen, after all, so they'll make for formidable foes against the Harkon??nen, Atreides, and Smuggler factions.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lFx4wfc8Tc

Shiro Games' Dune: Spice Wars mixes elements of real-time strategy and 4X games. As the different factions vie for control of Arrakis and its much-coveted spice, players can try to establish bases, develop infrastructure, and wage war to? win the planet. Or use subterfuge, politics, and diplomacy instead.

Getting a little spicy

This is only one of Funcom's Dune games in the pipeline, as the publisher also has an open-world survival game set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe in development too.

Dune has had a lengthy history in video games, as we combed back over in our retrospective last year. While its adventure game was also notable, Dune: Battle for Arrakis wound up being a landmark game for Westwood Studios. It's easy to say that Dune and the real-ti??me strategy are pretty intertwined.

With the first movie getting a solid reception and more on the way, the door's open for Dune to get a video game resurgence too. Beyond getting some skins in Fortnite, that is.

The battle for Arrakis will kick off again later this month, when Dune: Spice Wars launches into early access on PC via Steam?? on April 26, 2022?.

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This is My Dune

Publisher Funcom and developer Shiro Games have offered up the first gameplay video for their incoming strategy title Dune: Spice Wars, an adaptation of the legendary sci-fi universe devised by author Frank Herbert. The game is currently in development for PC and consoles.

As we reported in December, when Dune: Spice Wars was first announced, the new title will return the real-time-strategy roots of Westwood's classic Amiga and PC releases of the earl??y 1990s. Players will be afforded the opportunity to select from a number of houses set within the Dune universe, before attempting to build a thriving mining community within the pl??anet's lucrative spice-mine mar?ket.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lFx4wfc8Tc

The new trailer, which appears to be narrated by th??e dulcet tone of a Lady Jessica-type, demonstrates how players will be responsible for the building and maintaining of communities, factories, silos, and machinery, carving out a piece of the all-important spice pie while steadying the scales of democracy, subterfuge, and war with rival houses, local communities, and cut-throat bandits.

Bargaining, espionage, resourcefulness, peacekeeping, and brute force will be the tools necessary to ensure that your time on Arrakis is a successful one, lest you and your people find yourselves face down in the sand. These are very early days, but if Shiro Games is able to capture even half the atmosphere and compelling gameplay of the Westwood titles, then Dune: Spice World could prove to be a real gem.

House Ferguson all the way.

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Spice, Spice, Baby

Video game fans of a certain age will well remember the majestic Dune video game adaptations of the early '90s, excellent strategy titles that paved the way for Westwood Studios' Command & Conquer series. Well, it is time to get your house in order once again, as publisher Funcom has announced Dune: Spice Wars, an all-new RTS headed to PC in 2022.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnttuBpqI_4

Much like the Westwood Studios classics, Dune: Spice Wars will see players take command of one of the many ordained houses, before laying siege to the desolate yet highly valuable mining planet, Arrakis. Choose from one of many factions, including the noble House Atreides and the brutish House Harkonnen, before commanding your armies, managing your mining facilities, and maintaining social and industrial systems to keep the spice flowing, your ?people safe, and the enemy at arm's length.

I'm House Ferguson.

Launching in Early Access in 2022, developer Shiro Games (of Northgard and Evoland fame) intends to "grow" Dune: Spice Wars as a title over the coming years, adding new mechanics, quests, troops, buildings, and much more. Players are asked to "forge their own path," using bargaining, espionage, resourcefulness, peacekeeping, or brute force in order to maintain their hold over the precious spices of Arrakis. It sounds like it could be a real return to form for fans of the original games and the Dune universe in general. Of course, the proof will be in the quality of the title itself, so here's hoping Dune: Spice Wars can live u??p to the magnificent legacy of t??he games that have come before it.

Dune: Spice Wars will enter Early Access on PC?? at some point in 2022.

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Meet Big Khan

A bit of a "good news and bad news" situation with Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. First, the bad. The Switch port has been delayed. Or??iginally announced for a June 25 launch, i??t's now slated to release on July 30.

But, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Today, we also get the first look at the Seed of Evil expansion. The trailer is embedded above. It shows a gruff moose named Big Khan gunning down pod ghouls. I don't have another sentence to logically follow the last one. So, I'll just say it again: It shows a gruff moose named Big Khan gunning down pod ghouls.

The Seed of Evil add-on is going to be priced at $15 for anyone who already owns the base game. The digital deluxe edition -- the base game and expansion -- will sell for $40, which is what the Switch version is priced at. However, there's currently a Steam pre-order sale where you can get all of it for $32.

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No Grace Jones unfortunately

It's been one year since Funcom officially released their barbaric open-world adventure Conan Exiles. To celebrate its first anniversary, new content is being added to the game's blood-soaked desert dunes. The free update includes two new dungeons - the underwater Sunken City and The Scorpion's Den - ready and wait??ing to be conquered by parties of brave adventurers ?(clothing optional).

The Riddle of Steel update will also overhaul pre-existing locations. Revisiting them will uncover new NPCs, crafting options, loot and boss fights. Also being added to Exiles is the new "Witch Doctor" feat which, once mastered, will allow players to summon wights and command the dead as their ow??n personal bodyguards.

If all that wasn't enough, then Exiles will also be paying tribute to actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, via a selection of statues, helmets and war-paints that movie fans will recognise from Arnie's turn in 1982's Conan the Barbarian, which saw the musclebound warrio??r tackle James Earl Jones??' warlord Thulsa Doom.

If you fancy jumping in and checking out all the head-cleaving action for yourself, then you can enjoy the adventure on PC gratis until May 13. Conan Exiles is available now on PS4, PC and Xbox One.

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Now with Secret World connections

Still in the mood for cosmic horror? Rock Pocket Games has reintroduced Moons of Madness??, a hallucination-filled game in which things go increasingly wrong on a Mars research base for our low-level-security protagoni??st who's just supposed to "keep the lights on" until the next crew shows up.

We first covered this horror adv?enture game in 2017. In the time since, publisher Funcom has come on board and Moons of Madness now "draws upon the rich lore and mythology" of Secret World Legends. (Orochi sound familiar?) "With Funcom's support we have been given the opportunity to do all the things we wanted to do with the game and the story," said Rock Pocket Games CEO Ivan Moen.

There are similar sequences in this and the original trailer, and at least at a glance, Moons of Madness seems to have the same general concept as before, but the presentation is tighter this time around. I like that it's not going to be nonstop horror, too. There will be more mundane moments spent tinkering with solar panels and electrical systems since the main character is, well, a technician. I'm feeling it, especially that gnarly scene up top that reminds me I've been wanting to see Annihilation again.

Moons of Madness will be out in tim?e for Halloween 2019 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Is there any conceivable way?? this will have a happy ending? A quick death might be our best-case scenario.

The post Moons of Madness is another one ?for the cosmic horror list appeared first on Destructoid.

Quack quack, here comes the redux

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A pig and a duck walk into a post-apocalyptic wasteland... Oh, you have heard this one? That's right, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden launched late last year. Quietly, it was a hidden gem.

Maybe it'll make more noise this summer. Publisher Funcom and developer The Bearded Ladies have announced that Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is coming to Switch in three months' time. The turn-based strategy RPG (an XCOM-like, if you will) will be ported to Switch and released on June 25.?? It's priced at $40.

This is more than a straight port, though. Bearded Ladies is also creating an add-on expansion that'll come with the Switch version. This is the linchpin to a new $40 physical Deluxe Edition that will also be available on PS4 and Xbox One (and, of course, Switch). The expansion will also be sold separately on PC, PS4, and Xbox One for folks who already own Mutant Year Zero -- although Funcom says pricing wi??ll be revealed closer ??to the summer launch.

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Multiple games in the works

Developer Funcom is working with Legendary Studios to develop a new open-world, multiplayer title based on the Dune series. Set to enter pre-production sometime this year, the game is the first in a line of multiple Dune projects that Funcom will be working on. The company has entered a six-year licensing agreement with Legendary and it seems this first title will be released to promote the upcoming Denis Villeneuve directed Dune film.

These new Dune titles will be released on both PC and consoles, though no specific platforms have been named. Considering the Dune film isn't set to release until next year, we could be looking at PS5 and Xbox Two (?) as the lead platforms. The games will?? likely see appearances from the film's stars, which include Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgard, and Oscar Isaac.

I don't have a large history with the previous Dune games, but I do remember really digging 2001's Emperor: Battle for Dune. I think it's a crying shame that Westwood Studios went under after creating such wonderful strategy games. While I don't like the sound of a multiplayer focused entry, I can only imagine that Funcom is actively seeking some way to bring back the RTS Dune t??itles. Maybe we can finally g?et back the legacy that was lost.

Funcom developing open-world multiplayer game based on the Dune universe [VG 24/7]

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Shut the duck up! (please laugh)

If you glance at a screenshot of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, you would rightfully assume it to be a grid-based tactics game like XCOM. While this is an apt and welcome comparison, Mutant Year Zero works to evolve that genre in a pretty logical way: by adding stealth and real-time ambush? mechanics to the strategy game formula.

The c?ombination of exploring open environments in real time with turn-based skirmishes makes combat move faster while not sacrificing the te??nsion of other tactics games.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden (PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox One)
Developer: The Bearded Ladies
Publisher: Funcom
Released: December 4, 2018
MSRP: $34.99

While Mutant Year Zero shares a whole lot of DNA with XCOM, it's something all its own. The basics are the same: there's turn-based combat, a tactical grid, a cover system, and characters that can bleed out. Even the unforgiving Ironman mode is present. The most significant difference you'll notice once you're set free in the world of Mutant Year Zero is that you're exploring in entirely i?n real time with a squad of up to three characters.

You explore The Zone, the stereotypical bombed-out post-apocalyptic setting of our game like you're exploring a dungeon in Diablo up until you enter a conflict. At this point, you transition into full-on turn-based combat. The smaller squ??ad size means that stealth and ambush tactics are your best friends. Running in guns blazing is a surefire way to get put down real quick. Instead, you'll want to split up your squad and have them all hide from the enemies with a clear line of sight. Once you've isolated one or two foes, that's when you rush to pick them off a few at a time.

Just separating your enemies isn't quite enough to ensure victory either. Loud weapons like machine guns and rifles are sure to attract attention, so before a huge fight breaks out, you'll want to start with silenced weapons like Dux' crossbow. It's also worth noting that if the enemy you're abusing gets a turn, they'll yell for their buddies, so it's unwise to start a fight you can't finish quickly. It's moments like this that make Mutant Year Zero so intense. Your silen?ced pistol doesn't exactly pack enough power to put down that colossal ghoul quickly, but the sound of your shotgun will defi?nitely alert his buddies. 

One wrong move can spell certain doom and I'm not ashamed to admit I was saving early and often. It takes the right amount of prep, ?positioning, and just plain luck to come out on top here.

It takes a while to learn your squad's strengths. You need to be sure you can hold your ground against the area's remaining foes before making yourself known. Marching into a zone full of hostile ghouls and robots while tossing grenades in the air is b?asically suicide. 

There's only a total of five squad members to choose from, some of which have overlapping abilities that unlock as you raise your overall level. The choice of which characters you take with you doesn't seem to make much of a difference as long as you're willing to play the way the game wants you to. Any combination of the cast will do. It's far more critical to be aware of what abilities you have set on each character before they e??nter combat and what weapons and armor they have equipped.  

Mutant Year Zero's story isn't breaking any new ground. It's adapted from a Swedish pen-and-paper RPG set in post-apocalypse where most of humanity was wiped out by something called the Red Plague a long time ago. You take control of a group of Mutant Stalkers, modified human?s who explore the ruins to gather supplies for the last human settlement known as the Ark. 

Over its roughly 14-hour campaign, we're treated to a ton of lore about this mysterious world via character banter as well as text and audio logs scattered throughout the world. In the long term, it sets up some co??????????????????????????ol potential storylines for what exactly these mutants are and where they came from, but fails to deliver. Also, the mutants really like to joke about how much "duck" sounds like "fuck."

Mutant Year Zero seems like the natural evolution for tactics games. The real-time aspects make things move faster an??d add a unique layer of tension. On the story end of things, it manages to keep you interested until the linear campaign finishes up. You won't find a groundbreaking narr??ative but it doesn't overstay its welcome, and the characters are just charming enough to keep you invested. 

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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But in a good way

“This game will not go easy on you.”

That was my warning moments before starting up the E3 demo for Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. When Brett booked this appointment for me, my mind read it as Mutant Football League so, going into E3, I was preparing myself for some football. I was going to kneel and everything. Turns out, these are a different ?set of mutants in a very diff??erent game.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, from developer The Bearded Ladies, is a single-player turn-based tactical role-playing game and the very first video game to based off the classic Swedish tabletop RPG Mutant. At E3, the developers actually brought with them the original rulebook, in all of its handwritten and typed glory, for the press to gawk at. They also brought the rulebook for Mutant Year Zero, which serves as th??e relaunch of the classic game. Unlike the original rule set?, this one was written in English so I could actually understand it.

Road to Eden takes place in a post-apocalyptic Sweden, keeping in line with its source material that always sets games in the players' hometown. Many of the developers working on it, including some former Hitman developers transported from IO Interactive, are from the specific region of Sweden it takes place in.  There’s no introduction to the demo as ?I take control of three characters -- Dux, Bormin, and Selma -- attempting to infiltrate a hollowed out building the enemy is?? patrolling. I don’t know who the enemy is, but I can hear from their dialog that they’re after the girl.

The crunch of the snow beneath my ??feet is the soundtrack to my journey, and as I search the area looking for ??scrap (the game’s currency) I come across a pile of body bags with a trench dug nearby. My team converses and comments on their surroundings, ensuring this won’t be some silent, stoic trek through the wildlands. These are three characters with unique personalities who are not above sharing hot takes on what they see.

They’re also unique in their playstyle. Bormin is equipped with two powerful, but loud, guns while Dux and Selma both have silenced weapons in their arsenal. Keeping quiet is the key to victory in Road to Eden, as one of three ?phases of gameplay lets me snipe?? enemies before they have a chance to alert the others. I fail miserably at this as I’ll explain in a little bit.

The first phase of gameplay lets me freely explore the area. This is when I search for scrap, med packs, ammo and whatever else is lying around before I reach the dilapidated building. Once I reach this part of the map, and I come across an enemy who doesn’t notice m??e, I go into the stealth portion of the game. Here, I can move my characters into position and take out the guard with my silenced weapons. If I’m successful, the game moves right back into free roam where I’m allowed to collect any loot from my fallen foes. If I screw up and they call for back-up, the game transi??tions into its third mode, a standard tactical role-playing game.

I attempt the demo twice and screw up both times trying to complete it. In my first go, I stumble upon an enemy soldier who, while I do shoot him with Dux’s silent crossbow, is still breathing at the end of my turn, letting him alert one of his comrades who is located way at the back of the map. When the developer on hand saw thi?s, he was actually curious as to how a character that far back was brought to attention. The difficulty on this demo may have been cranked up just a bit too high, something noted by PCWorld’s Hayden Ding?man one evening after the show over drinks.

I was able to take out this second soldier without alerting anyone else to my presence, but then fuck up right away when I walked directly into sight path of a soldier hidden from view. My team is taken out within seven turns. I try again a second time, but this attempt becomes a shit show immediately when I mistakenly use Bormin’s shotgun instead of Selma’s silenced pistol on the first guard I come across. This alerts everybody, and I mean everybody, to my whereabouts and qu??ickly ends the attempt in f?ive turns.

I may not have made it that far, but both attempts give me a solid understanding of the best way to approach combat situations. Similar to XCOM or Mario + Rabbids, suc??cess is all about position. The enemies have the upper hand on my team, occupying the second story of this building, able to fire down from up above. I can even those odds a bit with grenades. On my second attempt at the mission, I demolish the floor of a second story room, bringing down the jackass trying to snipe my team from up above. The fire raging from the explosion sets him ablaze, though I’m not quite sure it keeps doing damage.

I probably would have had a better go at things had I paid more attention to what the developer told me. In addition to their guns, each of the charac?ters has a mutative trait that can even out the odds in battle. Characters will unlock new, more useful mutations over the course of the campaign. Dux, for instance, is able to sprout a pair of butterfly wings h??e can use to fly to upper levels of buildings. I really wish I had known that was an option for me.

Mutant Year Zero’s E3 demo presents nothing short of a beautiful and thoughtful tactical role-playing game. The odds may have been stacked against me, but its difficulty hasn’t deterred my interest in it whatsoever. In fact, it’s only made me hungrier for the full experience. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is set for release? on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One later this year.

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And hear the lamentations of their servers

Despite not having much affinity for survival games, I did find Funcom's Conan Exiles rather promising upon its full release earlier this month. In my Review In Progress, I noted that I?? was having fun in its wide, very pretty, Exiled Lands, largely freed from the confines of a scripted narrative and e?ncouraged to chart my own path to glory and/or death.

I resolved to keep at it for a while longer, at least until I got a taste of the game's more advanced systems, and had seen for myself some of the new content Funcom added for ?the full launch, namely the new volcanic and swampy territories, as well as taking a crack at larger-scale base-building and the multiplayer scene.

Unfortunately, for all my ambition to drink deeper of the game's offeri?ng, a life in the Exiled Lands can?? be a savage, unforgiving one.

Conan Exiles (PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox One)
Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Funcom
Released: May 8, 2018 (Early Access release Feb. 2017)
MSRP: $39.99 (Steam), $49.99 (PS4/Xbox One)

Indeed, my greatest enemies in Conan Exiles were not the fierce creatures or hostile NPCs, but the game's comparatively tiny server capacity. Despite the game being on a bit of a post-release high in terms of overall population, every server is limited to a mere 40 players, and several times I would make significant progress on one server, only to have it fully occupied the next time I tried to play, forcing me to start anew. Players who have limited time to play Conan Exiles and don't care much for interacting with others can opt for an offline solo session. But seeing as playing with a group is the fastest?? way to explore the game's top-?level unlocks and multiplayer content, that wasn't an option for me. 

Eventually though, I did have my own set of encounters with other players on a newly-booted Asia-region server. They went as well as could be expected of what happens to random bystanders watching two groups go at it. While at its core, Conan Exiles' player-on-player action is similar to what can be found in the likes of Rust or Ark: Survival Evolved, the game distinguishes itself through its integration of Conan the Barbarian lore. Players who worship one of the Hyborian Age's gods??? can, with an appropriate amount of effort and some key structures, even summon and briefly control avatars of those gods, and luckily, I watched one group of players summon a floating tentacled horror to demolish their opponents' base. I was quickly killed trying to get a good look at the thing, but the thought of being able to do that for myself poses a tantalizing prospect.

Even more mundane base sieges are made more exciting thanks to the inclusion of the "climb anything" traversal style. Simply holding a button allows players to cling to almost any surface for as long as their stamina holds out. The feature seems explicitly inspired by the climbing in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and it's put to good use here as Conan Exiles players can scale sheer walls and cliffs in search of plunder, loot, or even just a good view. The construction sy??stem is also fairly generous. Players can build into cliff faces and other odd locations, allowing one to claim a spot with some genuinely creative wizard's tower of a structure. 

Getting to the more advanced unlocks is hard to do all alone, but Conan Exiles' solution to the problem of labor shortages is an age-old one: Slavery. Indeed, the "Thrall" system fits into the savage world of Hyboria, and allows players to knock out NPCs with a special weapon, then tie them up and drag them back to base to be broken on the iconic "Wheel of Pain" structure. Moral concerns aside, the actual act of capturing NPCs is rather mundane. After being broken on the Wheel, Thralls appear as, effectively, a placeable piece of NPC furniture. Once placed, Thralls will act based on their archetype. Guard Thralls attack hostile wildlife and players when they approach, while Entertainer Thralls will dance endlessly, and lower "corruption", a negative stat that rises when players venture into areas contaminated by fell sorcery. Specialist Thralls like blacksmiths can also be found and put to w?ork on an appropriate structure, and will automatically craft advanced materials, allowing access to new recipes.

When played solo, Conan Exiles feels like a fleshed-out, fantasy iteration of Fallout 4's settlement building system, though in this case even further stripped of narrative ties. Whereas Fallout 4 tended to make settlement-building oddly inconsequential for its depth, Conan Exiles puts it front and center as the key to advancement. A building-hating pla?yer could theoretically survive in the Exiled Lands, but wouldn't get very ??far for lack of the advanced items and unlocks. 

Similarly, sufficiently advanced players can even tempt fate itself, thanks to the "purges". Building up advanced bases past a certain point can attract attention from the local??s, who, after a threshold is reached, will attack the base in a purge. Ideally, purge targets will have a line of defense, with thralls ready to repel the assault, but the larger and more powerful a player group or construction is, the stronger a purge it will invite. This semi-regular horde-mode gameplay is a fun way to keep groups of players on their toes, even in otherwise s??afe PvE environments.

Unfortunately, getting to that advanced point can be a real drag. At the time of this writing, all harvesting in the game must be done manually. Given how quickly resource costs can ramp up, that can mean hours of hacking away at trees, bushes, and rocks to hoover up raw materials. Funcom is? at work on a patch to allow more of that tedium to be automated (either through Thralls or special structures), but at the moment it's a weird feeling to be the mas?ter of the castle full of thralls, yet still be the only one capable of hauling up the rocks and twigs needed to further exapnd your fortress.

While some of Conan Exiles has rubbed off a bit for me thanks to friction with its more cu?mbersome aspects, it remains a genuinely engrossing experience to play... if you can find a spot in the queue.

_{[This review is based on a copy of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Stranger in an Exiled Land

Mention "Conan the Barbarian" to me and I'm more likely to think of a certain redheaded late-night comedian in cosplay than I am to think of Robert E. Howard's iconic savage. Similarly, talk to me about "survival games" and my only real point of reference would be quite a bit of time spent with DayZ back when it was a janky ArmA II mod. 

While this means I might not exactly be the most qualified person to tackle Funcom's new open-world survival game based on Conan's Hyborian-age adventures, I can tell when I'm having a good time, and that's definitely been the case with Conan Exiles so far.

Conan Exiles (PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox One)
Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Funcom
Released: May 8, 2018 (Early Access release Feb. 2017)
MSRP: $39.99 (Steam), $49.99 (PS4/Xbox One)

After a year or so in early access, Conan Exiles is now officially "live" and, to my surprise, actually feels like a somewhat "complete" game. The cynical view of the modern early access pipeline is that any game reaching launch - especially one billed as a hybrid of survival game and massively multiplayer open-world title - is akin to a more stable beta build than finalized product, with developers often still scrambling to finish content that's often thought of as critical while players hammer on th??e servers and uncover new bugs.

I can't say the same for few days I've spent so far with Conan Exiles, in which I've experienced nary a crash, or seen a bug more serious than the occasional lag spike or janky animation. Of course, it's not as if the game faces the exact same challenges associated with, say, the launch of a full-fledged MMO. Each server can only handle up to 40 players active at a time. Those lucky (or unlucky) forty will inhabit their own instance of Hyboria's Exiled Lands; a section of varied terrain cut off from the rest of the canonical (Conan-ical?) continent that makes up Conan's main setting. The Exiled Lands are a place criminals are sent to die, fenced in by magical energy walls and kept from leaving by a cursed bracelet. The player character is a criminal themselves (with randomized, sometimes hilarious "charges" h??elpfully detailed at the character creation screen), and begins the game crucified at the edge of the Exiled Lands, only to be saved by Conan himself and set loose to make their own way in the world and, perhaps, find a way to escape their imprisonment.

That's about as much story as I've gotten so far, bar interacting with the occasional magical monolith, journal entry, or brief conversation with one of the game's few non-hostile NPCs. Conan Exiles is more about setting a mood than telling a story. It doesn't contain any traditional quests or missions, either, besides a tutorial-like "Exile's Journey", challenge list. Those challenges are a good source of early experience points, and help prompt players to learn how to perform basic actions (like eating, drinking, and building shelter), but someone looking for a more directed narrative or a lot of lore to chew on would be better served with a different game (perhaps even Age of Conan, Funcom's other Hyborian-age fantasy multiplayer title). To take a somewhat reductive tack, Conan Exiles feels like the kind of game one would get if one made Skyrim, but repl??aced quests and characters with built-in support for a bunch of "hardcore survival" mods.

That might actually be a good thing, considering that major narrative has always been a weaker point of many open-world RPGs (Skyrim included). Viewed in that light, and based on my own experience, Conan Exiles feels less like an exercise in putting out something "bare-bones", and more like a game that's interested in skipping the fluff and allowing players to explore, settle down, and find their own fun. For a solo player like me, that fun is in exploration. The Exiled Lands are huge and quite pretty, with terrain types ranging from hot deserts and t??ropical river valleys to temperate forests, ashen volcanoes, humid swamps, and frozen tundras. Even in the absence of a main campaign or traditional quests, there's a lot to see, and plenty to do in order to get to the seeing.

Initially, that isn't a very daunting prospect, thanks to a few "quality of life" concessions the game makes. Like most survival games, Conan Exiles makes players craft the tools and gather the resources they need to make life livable. Thankfully, though, basic crafting can be accomplished from the get-go, and within minutes of creating my completely naked criminal of a character, I was dressed in some comfy rags and wielding crude stone weapons, with more recipes and items unlockable as I leveled up and spent my accumulated "knowledge points". While it looked like advanced items and structures would ramp up quite a bit in resource costs, it's at least easy to keep the essentials in good repair. Maintaining the ever-draining food and water meters manages to toe the line between pressuring players prepare and leaving them hassled and frustrated. It felt logical and fun to think about the equipment I'd need in ord??er to visit the game's hotter and colder climates. Setting out from home base really did feel like a significan??t undertaking.

So far, so survival game. The aspects that most distinguish Conan Exiles from the competition are, I'm embarrassed to admit, the bits I haven't been able to tackle in much depth as yet. My inexperie??nce with the genre and fear of risk (I've been having more fun building an idyllic little hut than striking out in search of adventure) have kept me close to home and away from the game's "Thrall" system - a set of mechanics allowing players to essentially enslave other NPCs to perform basic tasks. Furthermore, the competitive aspects of player-led clans, base-building, and raids against player - and AI - controlled fortresses are all tied up in the multiplayer-centric endgame. Even the games'? dungeons - distinct areas with bespoke challenges and rewards - are generally designed for group play, with a pretty high level of gear and experience needed to reliably "solo" even the lowest grade of dungeon.

I'll be trying my luck on the game's PvP and multiplayer servers moving forward. Word in the community seems to be positive, but complaints seem centered around actually maintaining access to a favorite server, as the low population limits and a high amount of idling players are keeping gr??oups and clans?? from being able to play together whenever they want to. Funcom has also promised to spin up new "PvE-Conflict" servers, which are PvE servers which also schedule windows throughout during the day for PvP play, a concept that could cut down on the "offline raiding" that has frustrated some.

With support from Funcom, and perhaps a friendly presence to play with, Conan Exiles' Exiled Lands may prove a fun and fulfilling place to live.

_{[This Review in Progress is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher]}

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You remember? the game with the dongs?

After spending a little over a year in Steam Early Access, Funcom's open-world survival title Conan Exiles is nearing its official release. The publisher has put out a final trailer to showcase the game in i?ts completed state.

In the game, the player takes up the role of a warrior left for dead, who is rescued from crucifixion by the ??titular barbarian. From there, the player shapes their own path to glory and notoriety, finding clothing, building a fortress, honing their combat skills, defeating w??ould-be usurpers and terrifying giant creatures, all en route to becoming a legend. Also, cocks.

The game is pretty damn brutal, often requiring you to act in immoral ways in order to survive in an immoral world. The protagonist must literally work their way up from their initial unarmed, injured, naked form to become the most powerful and feared entity in the land, often through struggle, massacre, ens?lavement? and ruthlessness.

The final release of Conan Exiles will see the light of day on PS4,? Xb??ox One and PC on May 8.

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Not all mutants are bad

When we first learned about Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden (still a too-long name), it was with a cinematic trailer that introduced the world but not the gameplay. The duck and pig protagonist duo in some sort of apocalyptic wasteland setting is strangely enticing. But, ??the idea of an adventure game mixed with tactical turn-based strategy was even more promising.

After a lengthy hands-off demo at GDC last week, I'm inclined to think the genre blending will work fantastically. That's because a) Mutant Year Zero has the sort of?? chops that strategy games need and b) this world feels worth exploring.

What I saw was a clo??se variation on this gamep??lay video that Funcom released today:

Even though Mutant Year Zero seems as if it'll take place in two distinct phases (either wandering around or fighting), they fee?d into each other nicely. In our presentation, the trio of good guys searched a ghoul camp in pursuit of a generator. Sneaking around had its advantages. It offered the opportunity to loot items, find pieces of environmental storytelling, and to give ourselves a tactical edge.

That tactical edge mostly came in the form of discovering a giant-ass mech that would attack anything in sight. With Dux?? and Selma tucked away behind cover, Bormin found a barn that housed this dormant robot. Activating him turned his attention to the ghouls, but eventually toward us too. It's a small price to pay.

The combat sensibilities -- although our demo was limited to one encounter -- seem competent enough. Each character has their pool of abilities to draw from, and ever?y turn is spent weighing the pros and cons of scurrying to new cover to line up a slightly better shot. A possible spot for interesting variation is that the characters have mutations because it's a game about mutants; Dux has a pair of batwings that he uses to hover in the sky. If the player gets to equip different mutations, it could nicely change up the way encounters play out.

We're told that Mutant Year Zero will have two major difficulty settings -- a normal one where characters are revived upon dying, and a permadeath mode where they stay dead. Developer The Bearded Ladies was coy when asked how this will work, simply saying "That's what makes it even harder than XCOM. There aren't that many survivors." However, The Bearded Ladies also confirmed that there are more playable characters (such as the cook from the reveal trailer), so maybe Dux and Bormin won't necessarily play the lead roles even though they certainly se?em like the stars now.

This Fallout-like world sure looks as if it has a whole lot of secrets it's hiding. We're keen to discover them when Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden releases later this year on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. For now, it?? seems like the mutated mashup of turn-based strategy and adventure game will work just fine.

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An adventure in the wasteland with anthropomorphic animals

As I wrote about last year, making a turn-based tactical strategy game invites inevitable comparisons to XCOM. Most developers see it coming and plan accordingly. The next game from Fu??ncom seems as ?if it's happy to try to piggyback right out of the gate -- no pun intended.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden (which is a prohibitively long name) is described by Funcom and developer Bearded Ladies as "a tactical adventure game featuring a deep storyline set on a post-human Earth, which combines strategy and the turn-based tactical combat of XCOM with real-time exploration and stealth gameplay." Also, two-thirds of the heroes are gruff anthropomorphic ani?mals.

As we see in this cinematic reveal trailer, this mutated apocalyptic world has its ?share of oddities, most obvious being the pig and duck that star in this game. The duck is named Dux and he's a crossbow-wielder; the pig is named Bormin and we just know that he has "serious anger issues." Their goal is both ambitious and ambiguous: To find "the legendary Eden."

The title Mutant Year Zero might seem familiar to some people. That's because it's already an established property, just not within the medium of video games. Mutant is a pen-and-paper role-pl??aying series that has been around since the '80s. The most recent campaign, called Mutant: Year Zero, released in 2014.

Little is currently known about what Mutant Year Zero actually is. The XCOM stuff is easy enough to wrap your head around, but the real-time exploration and stealth might add a unique wrinkle. Mutant Year Zero is said to r??elease?? sometime in 2018 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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Not Secret Window

Johnny Depp has been a musician, a director, a writer, a vampire, a pirate, a guy with sc?issors for hands, and proprietor of a chocolate factory, among other things. I'm no??t sure which of those he's actually been and which he hasn't, but he can now add television producer to that list.

Depp's production company, Infinitum Nihil, is producing a TV show based on the dark fantasy MMORPG The Secret World.

The Secret World has always been rich with story, as evidenced by its relaunch back in June as Secret World Legends. It was newly described as? a "shared-world online RPG," allowing? players to choose between multiplayer or experiencing its massive content through a solo campaign, a wise move for a game that's been lauded mainly for its stories.

The war between the Illuminati, the Dragon, and the Templars will feature in the show along with a mixed bag of ancient myths and legends, the supernatural, current news, and conspiracy theories. There should plenty to mine from all that to fill out an entire series. It will be produced by Johnny Depp, Christi Dembrowski, Sam Sarkar and Gudrun Giddings alongside Showrunner Pam Veasey, who's best known for CSI: NY. Giddings and Sarkar optioned the rights to The Secret World media back in 2012. &ldq??uo;It is one of the most character-driven and well-developed games I know of,” says Giddings. “Hence it naturally lends itself to fantastical storylines with intriguing characters, a thrilling and binge-worthy international TV show.”

The most exciting bit for me is that it's being written by James V. Hart, who wrote that Hook movie with Robin Williams that made me want to eat imaginary food with the Lost Boys as a kid. Now it's kind of depressing ??to think about. 

 Johnny Depp hel??ping produce Th??e Secret World TV show [Eurogamer]

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A roadmap of the next year on Steam Early Access

With around 480,000 copies sold in its first month on Steam Early Access, Conan Exiles is working out for Funcom. The company says the floppy and nude survival game was able to recoup its development budget in under a week, and these initial signs of success have culminated in plans to "??[invest] another 5 to 10 million USD into the development before final launch" in Q1 2018 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Along the way, players can expect to see patches for bugs and stability "every one to two weeks," around four to six "big game updates" while Conan Exiles is in Early Access, and additional ??large, staggered updates that add things like creatures, different ty??pes of terrain, and god avatars.

There's a whole mess of other forward-looking details in this roadmap posted by the development team, if you're curious. The short of it all? Conan is getting ?siege warfare, NPC ??raiders that will launch coordinated attacks on settlements, horse- and even rhino-mounted combat, sorcery, a settlement command system complete with thrall scheduling, and the highland biome.

T??his is a game I'm perfectly happy to wait on. For now, I'll stick to catching the occasional bouncy gif.

A look at things to come [Conan Exiles]

The post What’s next for Conan Exiles leading up to final launch appeared first on Destructoid.

Dick GIFs > Dick pics

In the opening minutes of sandbox survival game Conan Exiles, your character is strung up to a cross before he is fortuitously saved by Conan himself. But, in those precious moments before, you get to customize yourself mid-crucifixion. That's when Conan Exiles unleashes the dick slider.

Although it's tastefully called "Endowment," the dick slider wiggles the wang to and fro as you decide exactly h??ow much to endow yourself. Be warned that the rest of this article is probably NSFW if you work somewhere that frowns upon dumb video game cock and balls GIFs. (??Me? I work somewhere that actively encourages me to seek them out.)

Friend of the site Hayden Dingman is playing the Early Access version of Conan Exiles. Here's him showing off that dick slider:

This is NSFW as fuck but like, come on, I'm fucking laughing so hard I've got tears coming out my eyes. //t.co/lry32YoSeR

— Hayden Dingman (@haydencd) January 30, 2017

Here's him doing some naked squats in the sand:

Ho. Ly. Shit. Conan Exiles is going to kill me. //t.co/RG7q3ZcEcK

— Hayden Dingman (@haydencd) January 31, 2017

In a message from Hayden, he told me "My dick is just flopping all over the place as I run." Conan Exiles: Good Game.

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Early-access release set for January on PC, spring on console

A week ago, in light of some new screenshots surfacing for Funcom's Conan Exiles, I said I was feeling the sandbox survival game despite my general fatigue with the genre. That's still true today as I watch this trailer informing us of a January 31 launch on Steam Early Access and a spring 2017 release window on Xbox One's equivalent program for work-in-progress games. (A PlayStation 4 port could eventually happen, but not at this stage since Sony doesn't ha?ve its own system in place).

Does it look great? No, I wouldn't say that. But it adds some elements to the familiar eat-craft-build?? survival shell that could prove interesting.? For instance, being able to enslave NPC bandits and summon a hulking avatar to wipe out player-run settlements. Can't say I've done that before.

"Everybody has a different interpretation of Conan and his world based on what they were exposed to. Some had their first Conan experience through the comic books, while others saw the 1982 Schwarzenegger movie before moving on to Robert E. Howard's stories. For sourcing our starting point has always been the Howard stories, ?with some inspiration from other sources as well."

I never played Funcom's earlier Conan the Barbarian video game, Age of Conan, but the studio wants to distance that still-running MMORPG from what it's setting out to accomplish with Conan Exiles.

"Being a survival game, Exiles is a different beast from our previous titles," the team said on its developer blog. "This isn't a sequel to Age of Conan and it is not an MMORPG. We also hope to bring some of our ?storytelling talent to the genre. Ther?e's less focus on telling an overarching story, but you will discover bits and pieces of lore scattered throughout the Exiled Lands."

And we shoul?d also keep our expectations in check more generally speaking, too. "Funcom is also a much different studio these days. Our staff and budgets are smaller than when we worked on previous titles. It's a unique situation that forces us to be more creative and work more like an independent studio. This lets us be more agile when it comes to adapting to the changing market and quickly add features and changes to suppo??rt the wishes of our community."

dev blog #2 – Conan ??Exiles announced for?? Xbox One! So what is Conan Exiles? [Conan Exiles]

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Conan Exiles

Lord knows I do not need another Rust-lookin' open-world survival game, much less one debuting on Steam Early Access, but Conan Exiles has me considering exactly that.

Funcom has a bunch of new screenshots today, some of which will look very familiar. The typical start-with-nothing, craft-your-way-to-the-top pr??emise is what it is, and I'm not especially looking forward to that progression loop, but I like the sound of these snippets from the game's overview:

"Enslave the bandits of the exiled lands to do your bidding by breaking them on the grueling Wheel of Pain. Sacrifice the beating hearts of your enemies on the blood-soiled altars of your god to seize true power and glory.? Summon the ??colossal avatar of your god and see them lay waste to your enemies and their homes." At least on paper, this ruthless world should be a good fit for the genre.

Conan Exiles is launching in January 2017 on Early Access. If you'd pr??efer not to take your chances agains??t unpredictable randoms, there will be private servers and the option to play in local single-player.

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Conan Exiles

We knew that Funcom, the developer that has run the Age of Conan MMO since 2008, was making a new Conan the Barbarian game and here it is: Conan Exiles. Aaaaaaaand it's a "survival game...including sandstorms, giant bu??gs, and crafting." Oh. Hmm.

Doesn't really scream bug-eyed Schwarzenegger with a giant sword, but I appreciate that Conan the Barbarian is more than just the movies I remember. Maybe this is doing something for some of you major Conan-heads out there? 

I did think shooting crossbows at at exploding barrels bit from :24 was funny. Conan Exiles will go into early access late summer 2016.

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Will you buy a ticket?

Funcom’s take on the ooh-this-is-a-spooky-abandoned-amusement-park-shall-I-enter-this-terrifying-looking-ghost-train trope The Park will hit current?-gen consoles on? May 3, 2016. 

The first-person horror game from The Secret World developers - which was originally intended to release on PS4 last week - marks the studio’s first foray onto consoles f??or a decade??.

The horror game is already available on PC. In our review we gave The Park a 6, stating: "If you're looking for pure horror, maybe go elsewhere. The Park isn't a "survival" game nor is it going for scares -- there's only one portion that provides that feeling, in fact. Instead, the narrative attempts a more disturbing tone, with realist??ic and relatable problems told through the veil of a creepy theme park."

Reception so far has been lukewarm, but I'm still tempted, mainly because this game reads like a Dean Koontz novel and I never recovered from the OMGITSGOINGTOMOVE Robbie the Rabbit costume at the beginning of Silent Hill 3. Am I the only one...?

Funcom's horror game The Park is comi?ng to PS4 and Xbox One in May [Eurogamer]

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PC Early Access this summer

Funcom has been busy! In addition to maintaining The Secret World, experimenting with games like The Park, and even dabbling into LEGO a bit, they're taking another crack at the Conan license. They've announced Conan Exiles for PC and consoles, which is coming by way? of Early Access on PC "this summer," and consoles "to follow."

With Arnold's new Conan movie just finishing up the screenwriting process, it's insane to me that we'll see this big of a resurgence for the first time in over three decades?? (the 2011 film doesn't count).

The post Funcom announces ‘Conan Exiles,’ with yes, that Conan appeared first on Destructoid.

Developed by Funcom

Funcom, the developer that has run the Age of Conan MMO since 2008, is in line to make a new Conan the Barbarian game after a partnership with Conan Properties leaving Funcom as the main PC and console developer in the Conan world. 

The MMO developer is also working on a spooky game called The Park set in the same world as its interesting Secret World MMO. The company needs a boost after reports a few months ago that it is flagging after poor performance by its LEGO MMO. A new Conan is on?e of three games the company w?ill announce in 2016.

"We are tremendously excited to be strengthening our relationship with Conan Properties," Funcom CEO Rui Casais said. "Conan the Barbarian is undoubtedly one of the world's greatest and most recognizable fantasy heroes,? and as game developers, working with such a character and being able to draw from the fantastically detailed world of Hyboria is nothing short of a dream come true." 

Aside from Funcom's Conan MMO, the only other recent Conan game was 2007's Conan, a typical God of War knockoff. I'm not sure how much cultural cachet the Barbarian has these days. It feels a bit like remaking Clash of the Titans in 2010. Or that 2011 Conan the Barbarian movie I completely forgot about. But Funcom will announce its new Conan game in January, 2016. 

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