Conan Exiles went into early access this week and has been increasing in popularity since its release. We got the chance to sit down with Joel Bylos, the game’s creative director, to talk about the game and the Conan franchise as a whole.<\/p>\n
What inspired you to create Conan Exiles? Was it mainly the love of the Conan Franchise or was there any games you have taken inspiration from?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re all big fans of Minecraft and we love the new genre of survival games that has sprung up from the concepts that Minecraft introduced to the mainstream \u2013 creative building and crafting, exploring an interesting world and, of course, fighting dangerous creatures.<\/p>\n Because we love Conan and his world, we thought that it was a great setting for this type of game and we wanted to bring forth elements that other games were simply not focusing on \u2013 adult themes, thrilling combat and a world packed with lore.<\/p>\n Has anything you have learnt from the development of ‘The Secret World’ and ‘Age of Conan’ helped the development of Conan Exiles?<\/strong><\/p>\n Absolutely. In a way, the MMO genre has started to break down into sub-genres over the past few years. MOBAs have replaced what used to be PvP Minigames in MMOs, and Survival Games have overtaken the crafting and open world PvP of the old MMO genre.<\/p>\n Because we have a couple of MMOs up our sleeves, we thought that this was a great opportunity for us to focus on certain aspects and try to turn them into a fun, enjoyable game.<\/p>\n Conan Exiles has been getting a lot of coverage from the press and community, what made you choose early access over a full release?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, we\u2019ve been through online multiplayer releases in the past, and even with months of beta testing we\u2019ve seen problems that are just impossible to spot before you go to scale. Early Access allows us a chance to get customers who understand that these things are difficult to predict (see Diablo 3 launch, even one of the best companies in the world can have difficulties in the beginning) and gives us time to react and improve.<\/p>\n Secondly, because of our experience with online multiplayer games we also understand that the players will evolve the game and find new and different ways to do things in the world that we never considered. Early Access allows us to tap into the infinite creativity of our players \u2013 giving us a chance to work with them to improve the game.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve already gotten a lot of ideas just from watching people play.<\/p>\n