Conan Unconquered marches to war today
Hear the lamentations of their giant scorpions?
Conan Unconquered, the horde survival RTS from genre veterans Petroglyph, is out now. Rather than than have a heavily scripted single-player campaign, it's openly inspired by the zombie swarm RTS and early access hit They Are Billions, at least as it once was. Solo or co-op, players need to build a fortress capable of enduring a sustained siege on all sides from a mixture of human and montrous enemies. Heroes (like Conan himself) can also be sent on outings to slay bosses, raid temples and gather loot. Below, a launch trailer, showing off just how big the enemy waves get.
It's an interesting twist in the evolution of the RTS genre. The co-op 'comp stomp' has always been a great way to pass the time with pals, popular through Command & Conquer, WarCraft, StarCraft and beyond. Conan Unconquered opens with a short, solo campaign mode, but it seems little more than a tutorial for the game's meat-and-potatoes survival mode on randomly generated maps. Still, defining itself from They Are Billions, Conan has some interesting enemy variety, and long-term hazards like piled up corpses at your walls eventually causing sickness.
While Conan Unconquered looks like a fine game, those unsure of which survival strategy game to pick may want to wait a couple weeks. They Are Billions is due to launch out of early access in the next couple weeks, along with a story-driven campaign mode that the developers are now estimating to be 60-80 hours long. Conan may be out of the gate first, but this is soon to turn into a pitched battle between a barbarian horde and the endless undead. Whoever wins, we get to stomp a lot of comps.
Conan Unconquered is out now on Steam and Humble for £25/€30/$30, or a £37.49/€44.99/$44.99 for a double-pack to share with a co-op buddy. It's published by Funcom.