Conan Exiles is undergoing many updates and continuously improving the player experience. The reviews have even improved significantly. So why are players staying away?
Currently, Conan Exiles is in a strange state. New updates keep coming, and according to the Steam reviews, the game is becoming better and more popular. Currently, the “recent reviews” are 72% positive.
While that’s less than the top rating of 86% in December, it’s still better than the “mixed” rating of 68% across all reviews. And yet, hardly anyone is playing Conan Exiles. Let’s take a look at why that might be.
This is why Conan Exiles is not growing
Competition Issues: There is increasingly more competition. Conan Exiles was one of the first dedicated survival games for multiple players that was created not from a mod.
The problem at the launch of Conan Exiles was that it couldn’t compete against ARK and only attracted a small player base. Most survival fans stayed with ARK or other competitors.
Conan Exiles still has a similar problem. Even though it has now established itself, more and more survival games are emerging. Recently, huge projects like Atlas or new releases like Last Oasis have drawn attention.
Conan Exiles faces the issue of too much competition in the market. Additionally, the game, with its barbaric setting, harsh environment, and partly quirky features, is primarily aimed at an adult audience and Conan fans.
The fans stay, but no one new joins: A core group of players maintains the dialogue with the developers and has an influence on the features that are added or changed in updates, such as the companion system or new gods and weapons.
Looking at the Steam reviews more closely, there is often praise that the developers work so hard on Conan Exiles. This praise usually comes from fans and rarely from new players who were attracted by acquaintances. Many players cite the setting and features as their reasons for staying.
The negative reviews mainly refer to bugs or unfulfilled potential. That is precisely why new players prefer to go for an alternative – or wait. Most newcomers apparently have little desire to play a game that still has bugs.
So many people play Conan Exiles
In May 2018, Conan Exiles was officially released. Before that, the game had already been in development for over a year and was playable as Early Access. Both for Early Access and the official release, about 50,000 players played.
But both times, Conan Exiles lost most of its players again. Even now, it looks rather sparse compared to its peak times. In the last 30 days, around 10,500 players have played Conan Exiles at the same time. (As of January 25)
Compared to the end of 2018, that’s a slight increase of about 2,000 players. However, over the entire year of 2018, it was quite a significant loss. Nevertheless, the developers are staying on track and may still manage to get more out of Conan Exiles.
Despite some quirks, Conan Exiles is a top-notch game and therefore also included in our 10 best survival games for PC, Xbox One, and PS4 in 2019.
