Greetings Exiles,
We want to give you a heads up and let you know that we will soon be increasing the price of Conan Exiles on Xbox One, and we want to explain why. Please note a price increase is only for new players, if you already own Conan Exiles on Xbox One you will not have to pay anything more and you will have full access to the release version.
First, we want to thank you for all the feedback, comments, and bug reports you have shared with us since we started this Game Preview adventure. Your contribution is invaluable and has helped us make important improvements to Conan Exiles both on PC and Xbox One.
As we are now inching closer to release, preparations have started for the retail release of the game. We are very excited about the fact that when we launch, Conan Exiles will be on shelves in physical stores around the world. Releasing in retail means Conan Exiles will receive more marketing and exposure which will hopefully bring even more players into the game.
What’s important to note is that releasing in retail also means doing retail pre-orders, and we expect pre-orders in retail to start as early as next week.
As with any Game Preview or Early Access game, it’s always been our plan to increase the price to reflect the quality and content of the final game. By the time we launch, the game will have had over a year of constant polish, improvements, bug fixes, and lots of new content. We’ve added the entire Frozen North biome, new dungeons such as The Dregs, and new features including siege weapons, climbing, the exploration system, the journey system, orbs, traps, and more.
The version we release at launch will have even more content and gameplay in it than what you see today, and will have a landmass more than twice as big as what we started out with on PC Early Access launch. In fact, we’re adding an entirely new biome, a completely remade combat system, and new gameplay mechanics. All of this will be included and available to everyone who bought the game before launch and from launch onwards.
Because we are now doing pre-orders in retail, we have to increase the price already as soon as pre-orders start. It’s not something we want to do, we would of course prefer to have kept the Game Preview pricing the same until launch, but there is a very good reason why we have to bite the bullet. Understandably, few if any stores would want to sell the game and offer pre-orders if you could go online and get it digitally at a significantly lower price. We also can’t sell it at the current Game Preview price in stores, simply because there are a lot of additional costs involved with selling in retail compared to digital such as manufacturing costs, shipping costs, store margins, and more.
We can tell you now that the release pricing for Conan Exiles on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will be $49.99. Starting next week, the price will increase from $34.99 to $49.99, but pricing will of course differ somewhat from country to country as it always does.
In order to make sure all Xbox players gets a fair chance to get into Game Preview before we increase the pricing, we wanted to let you know now. We’re also going to run a special 50% discount sale on Conan Exiles Xbox One Game Preview from Friday December 8th to Sunday December 10th, giving anyone still on the fence a chance to get in at a very low price. This discount will be 50% off the current price, so about $17.50 in US dollars. As always, anyone who purchases Game Preview access also receives the full digital game at launch.
We also want to let you know that we’re introducing a special pre-order item for digital Game Preview/Early Access. If you have bought Game Preview or PC Early Access at any time (in the past or in the future before launch), you will get Conan’s Royal Armor at launch that you can use in-game:
We also want to be upfront about the fact that PC players will not see a price increase on Steam Early Access. This will stay at the same $29.99 we’ve had since start of Early Access. We understand this may feel unfair to our Xbox One players, but we’re able to do this because the PC version will have a very small retail presence and at a different price tag at launch.
Thank you for taking time to read through this. We know doing a price increase during Game Preview is a sensitive matter and we wanted to take time to explain why we have to do it. In the end we believe this will be in the best interest of the game and its future life, as it lets us reach out to a bigger audience and give Conan Exiles even more exposure through presence in stores around the world, all of which ultimately allows us to continue adding more expansions, more features, and more content after launch.
Our focus now is continuing to improve the game and make sure we have all the new content and features in for launch. Thanks again for sticking with us and providing all your invaluable feedback to help us improve Conan Exiles – we definitely couldn’t do it without you.
Sincerely,
The Conan Exiles Team