Conan Exiles' Upcoming Age Of Heroes Brings New Companion System, Living Settlements

mmorpg.com:

Conan Exiles is gearing up for its next major content drop, Age of Heroes, coming in October to PC, Xbox, and PlayStation consoles, and the update looks to be a big one, especially if you’re into base building in the survival game. 

At the center of the first chapter of the Age of Heroes update is a revamped take on settlements that aims to breathe new life into each player’s base across the exile lands. This is achieved by bringing thralls — the servants players gather, to put it mildly — to life in ways not seen before in Conan Exiles. 

Characters are now given more realistic behavior and interact with a base in realistic ways, injecting activity into an otherwise static settlement. During a press preview yesterday, Funcom took us through a settlement that was bustling with activity thanks to the new living settlements system. 

Some of the interactions are simple, such as a Thrall simply looking for a place to go and meandering throughout the lanes of the settlement. Another Thrall got hungry, heading to a nearby campfire to get a bite to eat after a long day’s thralldom.

It should be noted, though, that just because a Thrall leaves a crafting station to go do something, whether it’s to walk aimlessly or go in search of a bite to eat, it doesn’t affect a station’s ability to craft at peak efficiency. You won’t need to hunt a Thrall down and press them back into service in order to craft a recipe — their manpower will still be directed towards the station that you’ve assigned them regardless of where they physically are in your settlement.

This is a nice quality-of-life feature, as the alternative is going on wild goose chases to seek out the Thrall you need, only to rinse and repeat at the next station.

By making this change, settlements looked more alive than I can remember. While our demo was hands-off, I could see the