There is a big difference between a game that is a work in progress and a game that is completely broken in every possible way. Conan Exiles is the latter. I want to start out by stating that this game is part of the Xbox Game Preview program and is not intended to be a final build. However, in the current state I wouldn’t even recommend trying it, as you’ll just become frustrated at an alarming pace.

Prior to playing this game, I was drawn in with the level of detail shown in the screenshots and early preview photos; these are apparently still being worked on, as the textures and detail shown in the current build are more akin to a PlayStation 2 game. After spending a few hours with the title, I am starting to wonder if those images were pulled from the upcoming Xbox One X port, which will be sad considering there are plenty of similar games already available that look light years ahead of Conan Exiles.

Upon starting your journey, you will create a character using a number of customization options, similar to those featured in the Bethesda RPGs you may be familiar with. While none of the options are particularly awe inspiring, they are varied. Not only can you customize the usual appearance, there is a slider to change the size of your male character’s battle axe if you get where I am going. Be warned, if you are in the US and want to model your character after Ron Jeremy, the slider is present, but no male nudity is included in this version. Rest assured, female characters are able to adjust the size of their bust and are free to run wild, with Dead or Alive style physics intact.

My initial attempt at playing was plagued by a number of glitches, ranging from mild annoyances to game breaking. The most prevalent being my character spawning into the game world mid-air, as if I was dropped into the game world by carrier pigeon, which resulted in me falling to my death. Repeatedly. Adding insult to injury, the load times when booting the game or respawning range from five to ten minutes. Yes, I said up to ten minutes.

If you manage to load into the game properly, you do have a number of threats to overcome; the biggest being the game itself. I am aware that this is a survival game, but I, nor anyone I know, has ever died from not being able to take a drink of water every 5 minutes. In the world of Conan, this is a reality. Keep in mind, this timeframe is on the Easy setting. Higher difficulties place an even higher emphasis on locating a water source and staying extremely close to it.

The enemies and creatures you encounter will range from dumb as rocks, which will frequently run up to you and stand still letting you pummel them as quickly as your poor excuse for a stamina bar will allow, to the complete opposite. These are murderous creatures from the depths of Hell, who will chase you relentlessly, ignoring physics as well as obstacles in their path to hunt and mutilate you. Literally, everything in the world will try and likely succeed at killing you.

Death carries a steep penalty beyond the inexcusable loading times. You will lose all of your scavenged items and will have to locate your corpse (good luck, never managed to find mine, despite staying around the same general area due to the water source) to pick them up. Additionally, if you are playing on a server with other people, they can steal your precious materials. You are able to keep your created character as well as any story progress and XP earned, but everything else is gone everytime you meet your demise, even when playing single player.

While there appears to be a story, I have yet to properly dive into it due to repeated issues with my progress being deleted as well as roadblocks due to the tutorial like missions requiring the player to craft, eat, etc. Again, it’s really difficult to do this when you need to remain 100 yards from a body of water to survive.

Your enjoyment of playing with other people will depend on the server you are paired with. Sadly, when my wife and I tried to play co-op, one or the other would end up having their Xbox crash and send us to the home screen, so at this time you are at the mercy of the matchmaking system or you can try to sort out the server names, which in the current build all show the same default name. While my wife was worshipped by the online community she was paired with, likely due to her character’s enormous breast-icles, I was hunted and killed mercilessly by large groups of other players. I have come to the conclusion this is the gaming equivalent of prison.

While Conan Exiles is not in a finished state, it’s not in a playable one either. It shows potential to be something both fun and different, but it will be a long while before we can properly explore what the game has to offer. Since this is still in Early Access/Game Preview status, we will not be posting a review until the full release and will be sure to update this article as updates are received.

Conan Exiles was developed by Funcom and published by Koch Media. The pre-release build is available on Steam Early Access and Xbox One Game Preview for $34.99. The game was provided for us to cover on Xbox One. If you’d like to see more of Conan Exiles, check out the official site.