The latest free update to Conan Exiles lets you explore the atmospheric but dangerous Midnight Grove dungeon. You can attempt to prove yourself worthy to learn the Jhebbal Sag religion or start taming your very own pets. On the other hand, maybe striking fear in your opponent’s heart with the new off-hand combos and specialist arrows is more to your taste?
This update has something for everyone!
Currently the update is only fully available on PC, but we’re planning on rolling it out for consoles later this week.
Pet system and taming
You asked for it and we are happy to deliver: From today on forward you will be able to tame and raise your very own pet(s). Explore the Exiled Lands with your trusty companion by your side or build a farm to have them produce materials for you.
You will want to start your career as a Beastmaster by building an animal pen for your new future friends. These shelters come in three different tiers and have 5 available pens to hold your animals.
Following this, you will need to obtain a baby or an egg. These can be found in the world, and on certain (rare) vendors so keep your eyes open while you travel! You’ll be able to place your baby pet version into the pen and have them grow into an adult and trusty companion over time.
However, don’t forget to feed and treat them well or you might just end up with a carcass!
While you have a baby animal in your pen, the type of food you offer it will influence your chances to have your baby grow into a greater pet version: A rarer, more powerful and special looking variation.
The new pet system will also introduce the mechanic of thrall feeding. Special Feed boxes and Thrall Pots are available for easier, automatic food distribution to several pets or thralls for those of you who are planning for bigger armies of two and four legged friends.
While keeping your pets happy and fed they will eat any type of food that they can digest. However, feeding them their favorite snacks will grant them temporary buffs.
Very conveniently, live animals will also produce dung, which is used to create compost for your planters.
Even in the sad and unfortunate event of your pet’s untimely death, you can still make use of them. Placing dead pets inside a Liquid Separator will grind them down into blood, bone and hide resources.
Jhebbal Sag Religion and the Midnight Grove
Do you have a beast inside? Then you will be excited that with this new update we also introduce the 6th and final religion of the primal god, Jhebbal Sag, Lord of Beasts. Unlocking his religion is quite different than the previous ones:
You will need to track down one of his followers out in the world, learn a crafting recipe and create a special potion to gain access to the Midnight Grove where the god himself will test your worth to be granted or denied the right to worship Jhebbal Sag.
If you prove yourself worthy, you will be able to learn his unique religion recipes, letting you craft his religious altars and tools, such as:
- Lures: which will attract an animal of a special type within your vicinity. You can lure them into traps or force them to move to a different area
- Hunters Potion: increases your accuracy
- Night-Eye Potion: gives you nightsight for a set amount of time
- Sign of Jhebbal Sag: You place a sign on the floor and lure an animal over it. It will then get taken back to the God’s Domain. Depending on the type of animals you send him he will either deem it worthy or unworthy and send you back a type of champion to test your strength. The strongest of these champions will need to be harvested to craft the signature weapon that we think you’ll really love.
The new Jhebbal Sag religious path and the Midnight Grove Dungeon have direct ties into the Pet system. Once you can travel to the Midnight Grove you can use these trips to collect Shadebloom, which you use to create Shadespiced foods. These grant you a higher change of getting a rare, Greater, pet when you’re raising them in a pen.
Also, coming out alongside the Midnight Grove is a new dynamic respawn system, which will allow you to respawn at the beginning of the dungeon if you die.
Off-Hand Combos
There are some things that you associate with the Conan world, such as dual wielding certain weapon types. With our latest combat update, we are introducing two special off-hand weapons which will open up a lot of new options for you to face your enemies in battle.
Until now your main hand weapon was used for a very specific goal depending on which weapon you were using: Swords to cripple your enemy, Maces while going up against shields and if you want a mix of both you might have used an axe, for example.
As a new mechanic, equipping a shield or a throwing axe in your off-hand will now enable new combos. This will not affect your left click (light attack) but it will change the heavy attacks, leading to completely different heavy chain combos. The heavy chain will now include additional attacks depending on which off-hand weapon you have equipped.
These new off-hand hits also come with completely new properties: The throwing axe will cripple, and shields will add the shield smash property with each hit. If you combo a one-handed spear with a shield in your off-hand you will also get hyper armor during your attacks.
This means you can now add several debuffs or use different properties the same time. Use a Mace for sunder and shield bash then add the off-hand throwing axe to also add cripple. Or if you want to make a 100% sure your enemy gets crippled, why not increase the chances and use a sword and the throwing axe together for cripple mayhem?
Be warned though: these combos take a toll on your character and you might want to plan your builds and armor choices accordingly.
All of these combos come with really cool new combat animations and unique kickass finishers.
New Specialist Arrows
This update will also introduce the new specialist arrow feats which will unlock additional arrow types for all you archery fans:
- Light Arrows (which will light up a small area temporarily on the point of impact)
- Utility Arrows (healing arrows which do damage and deploy a healing over time cloud on impact), poison arrows which deploy a poison field upon impact), explosive arrows, tar arrows and corruption arrows. You can combine these arrows to create combos such as big explosions by shooting an explosive arrow into a poison field
- Ancient Arrows