I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible. This guide aims to get a brand new player to level 60 in 12 hours and or less. This also includes any unfortunate events such as death, player interaction and or resource availability. So don’t worry if you fall off a cliff and forget to put down a bed, this is all planned.

If you find this article useful, please check out my Interactive Conan Exiles Map.

Please Note:

This guide is based on leveling up on official servers so anything with enhanced exp you will progress significantly faster.

significantly The guide requires you to build a character with efficient killing in mind. Try and build a character with at least 20 strength and 30 vitality using your attribute points.

Kill on sight as much as possible, a good portion of your experience comes from killing creatures.

Levels 1 to ~20

Watch the video, it shows you can complete levels 1-20 in around 30-45 minutes by completing all of the easy Journey Steps. I was able to get to level 22 in under 40 minutes using this guide.

You can also get this faster or get to a higher level if you aim for the optional Journey steps for this stage; these are:

Venerate the Gods (Access an Alter)

(Access an Alter) Ride an Elevator

Drink Water from a Well

Get a Head (Harvest Animals to literally get a head)

(Harvest Animals to literally get a head) Throw an Orb

Combine Orb Effects

Catch a Fish (from a fish trap)

To complete these at this stage requires other players to have these items available. Don’t worry if you can’t because you’ll have plenty of time to do these yourself later on.

Leveling Route Map

Once you arrive at The Sentinals this is the route you will want to take through the desert.

Level 1

You’ve just created your character and entered the game, there are 4 things you need to do straight away:

Dodge

Kick

Talk to the Ancient Relic (Green glowing rock with hieroglyphs)

Climb (the Ancient Relic)

Next, in this area there is always a rock with a water bottle on, find it, pick it up and drink from it for the Drink Journey step.

Start putting Attributes into Vitality until you have 10.

As you make your way to the Newbie river, you must pick up, craft and learn feats.

Farm Plant Fibre – This is an important one because a lot of what you’re going to craft requires Plant Fibre or Twine. Just keep gathering the stuff and make twine when you need it. Also when you get bugs, eat them to gain the Journey step, Eat. Pick up Branches – Similar to Fibre, the branches are important and used to make all the tools, weapons, bed and fire you’ll make before reaching the river. Find Stone – Stone is only important to make your tools initially. Find the rocks, which are black at this point in the game and pick them up.

With this being said, we’re going to start working on the following Journey steps and have them completed before reaching the river:

Clothe Yourself – With the Plant Fibre you’re gathering, start making clothes.

– With the Plant Fibre you’re gathering, start making clothes. Craft a Tool – Once you have some branches and stone create a pick.

– Once you have some branches and stone create a pick. Use a Torch – With Plant Fibre and Branches, create a torch and equip in your hand to gain the journey.

Once you reach level 5 and should Learn the following Feats:

Warrior – To create a Stone Sword and Stone Club Defender – To create a Wooden Shield

Make the Stone Sword and Stone Club – You will get to level 6 and learn the Feat, Skirmisher, make Stone Daggers and a Stone Spear.

Keep picking up Plant Fibre and branches as you run towards the river.

As you reach the first set of trees start farming them with your Pick to gain the Bark Journey step – Now make a Wooden Shield with the wood and venture towards the river. You will want to find a Shaleback.

Find a Shaleback

We currently have a Wooden shield, Stone Sword, Stone Club, Stone Daggers and a Stone Spear in our hot bar. With this one Shaleback we will get the following Journey Steps:

Block an Attack – Provoke the Shaleback into attacking you first and make sure you block it.

– Provoke the Shaleback into attacking you first and make sure you block it. Perform a Heavy Finisher with a Weapon – Use the Stone Club’s heavy combination

– Use the Stone Club’s heavy combination Sunder an Enemy – Gained by using the Stone Club

– Gained by using the Stone Club Cripple an Enemy – Swap to the Stone Sword and use the heavy attack combo

– Swap to the Stone Sword and use the heavy attack combo Shoot an Enemy – Equip the Spear and throw it at him

– Equip the Spear and throw it at him Make an Enemy Bleed – Equip the Stone Daggers and use the heavy attack combo

– Equip the Stone Daggers and use the heavy attack combo Slay – After all of this we can assume the Shaleback is dead – poor guy.

Harvest the Shaleback with your Stone Axe for Savoury Flesh, if you didn’t get it this time, kill another. Create a Campfire and Fiber Bedroll, put both on the ground and cook the Savoury Flesh and eat the Grilled Steak.

You should now be level 11 – Increase your Vitality to 10 and put the remainder in Encumbrance and Grit.

You now need to run towards The Sentinels which is roughly in the middle of the River. Along the way find an Exiled Camp. These are Exiled Thralls gathered around a bonfire for Scout an Exile Camp. Arrive at The Sentinels and speak to Arcos the Wanderer for Find Somebody to Talk to.

In addition to this, crouch and try to get under his tents for the Find Shelter journey step.

From the Tower of Bats and to the Jungle

The next few steps require a bit of everything. Run, climb and fight you way through the next few stages, the aim is to be level 20+ by the time you’re in the jungle.

What’s important about this stage is speed. You need to run through camps and loot chests to gain some Journey Steps. Just walk up to the chest, open it and press the Loot All button – Don’t stop to look at whats in it, do that at a safer point. These are the Journey Steps you’re wanting to complete this way:

Obtain an Iron Bar – Gained from Most Chests in the Game

– Gained from Most Chests in the Game Obtain a Potion – Gained from chests though drop rate is much lower, don’t worry if you don’t get it first time around. You can complete this later on.

– Gained from chests though drop rate is much lower, don’t worry if you don’t get it first time around. You can complete this later on. Throw an Orb – Most, but not all Chests contain Water/Grease/Gas Orbs, when you found one throw it to get the Journey Step.

– Most, but not all Chests contain Water/Grease/Gas Orbs, when you found one throw it to get the Journey Step. Dye an Item – Some chests also have Dyes in, if you find one Dye a piece of clothing to complete.

In addition to this, if you’re starting on a server with people already established, you could potentially pick up the optional Journey steps I mentioned in the beginning.

It’s not essential you complete these during your run because you can do this in the build phase. However it will certainly help.

From The Sentinels run directly up towards the middle of the desert. When you reach the top of the hill mine the Iron Stone nodes for Mine All the Iron in a Node. Run towards Tower of Bats and scout the Darfari Camp at the base of the mountain.

Run around the side of the Tower as shown in the video and climb half way up to gain the Journey Climb the Tower of Bats.

Run directly north, across the river towards the closest entrance to the Unnamed City for Visit the Unnamed City. As soon as you get the Journey, do a U-turn towards the closest Dogs of the Desert camp (near the black hand) for that scout Journey.

Run East, towards The Sinkhole and attune yourself to the obelisk. Run North East towards the Scoundrel’s Getaway for Scout a Black Hand Camp. Run through the camp and loot any chests you see. From here, run into the Black Galleon and loot the Chests you find. This step sounds pretty crazy but you can do it without dying.

There are at least 4 chests you can get, one at the very top next to where the tanner thrall spawns. One in the room right below this and the other two are in the very bottom of the galleon.

From here, fight you way towards the jungle and onto the build phase.

The Jungle & The Build Phase Levels 21 to ~35

The jungle is an excellent location to level in. Creatures are relatively easy to kill and provide excellent exp. Try and find a place were there are plenty of birds and lizards in the area, to call home (as shown at the end of the 1-20 video.)

The other reason why the jungle is a prime location for fast levels is because you’re going to need a lot of tar. The majority of experience gained after level 40 will be from creating explosive jars and traps. To do this, your supply of tar must meet the demand of the amount of explosives you’re going to make! But I’ll explain that later in the article.

The main goal is to make a small efficient base with each of the main work stations; Blacksmith Bench, Furnace, x2+ Firebowls, x2+ Tannery, Carpenters Bench, Armourers Bench, Fluid Press and a Fire.

These are the next set of Journey Steps you will want to complete:

Store Goods Create a Home Equip a Piece of Light Armor Use a Skinning Dagger to Skin an Animal Venerate the Gods Get a Head Sleep in a Bed Craft an Iron Tool Obtain a Potion Dye an Item Catch a Fish Plant Seeds Upgrade a building Piece Ride an Elevator Squish something in a Fluid Press Drink from a Well Drink a Yellow Lotus potion Build or Upgrade your building to the highest Tier

The Build Phase

Once you have a shell of a base you need to fill it with work stations.

A really important piece of advice is any time you have downtime ( i.e. when you’re waiting for iron bars in the furnace) run around the near areas, kills creatures and farm hide. This should be a non-stop pursuit of gaining experience.

Build one or two furnaces and fill them up with enough ironstone to create enough iron bars for a blacksmith bench and iron tools weapons and a Firebowl. Whilst waiting for this to happen, kill mobs and or farm the additional materials for all the other work stations. When your iron bars are done, create a Blacksmith Bench and make iron tools but most importantly an Iron Corseque. This is your weapon of choice until you can make a Steel Trident.

Once you’ve completed the above Journey Steps, have light armour and fully equipped with iron weapons and tools, it’s time to grind the remaining levels to level 34. Make sure you farm as much reptile hide as possible.

Farm stacks and stacks of Reptile Hide

I mentioned one of the other reasons why the Jungle is the prime location to level is because it’s a great source of tar. Tar is extremely important for levels 34-60 as you’re going to make a lot of steelfire which you need to make explosives.

The easiest way to get tar is having stacks and stacks of reptile hide. When you put the reptile hide in the tannery (with plenty of bark, of course.) you get 1 tar for each hide. Reptiles (crocodiles, lizards and salamanders) are much easier to kill and farm than tigers etc (which also give you the same 1:1 ratio.) So it makes sense you farm these guys into oblivion.

Explosive Jars and Traps, Levels 35-60

Making explosive jars is pretty simple, you need steelfire, demon blood, crystal and brimstone to make dragonpowder. Then use an Artisan Table to make Jars. Combining the two with 5 tar will make you one Explosive Jar.

When crafted, Explosive Jars provide over 100k experience and the Explosive traps provide a further 400k experience… yes 400k! This means it will only take around 30 Explosive Jars to turn into Explosive Traps to give you enough experience to get to level 60.

The time sink is getting enough steelfire to craft the explosives, which again is the reason why I suggest farming as much reptile hide as possible.

Brimstone is the easy ingredient of steelfire and one or two farming runs of several locations will provide you with more than enough. The issue is having enough Tar, which is why you’re going to be non-stop farming hide and putting them through your tannerys to get it.

Before this, however, we need to make sufficient stashes of the following materials:

Brimstone

Bark

Crystal

Demon Blood

Brimstone

You can farm sufficient amounts of Brimstone by visiting several locations. The ideal amount of brimstone needed for this stage is around 6000. To get this, you need to be able to farm, Death Whisper Ruins, Gallmans Tomb, and the Sinners Refuge twice without any other player interaction so you have all the brimstone spawns to yourself.

Bark

Bark is important because it’s the fuel for the tannery to turn reptile hide into leather and tar. The easiest way of getting bark is by using a pick on dried out trees. North of the Black Galleon are plenty of these trees that you can farm for bark. I recommend doing a full sweep of this area and carry back as much bark as your character can carry.

Crystal

One sweep of an untouched crystal cave is enough for your bomb making endeavours. Try and aim to bring back around 2500 crystal. Remember to harvest crystals with your pick, it provides sufficiently more than just picking it up!

Demon Blood

Demon Blood comes from harvesting, well Demons, and you don’t need to go into the Unnamed City to get it. Harvesting Imps, Undead Hyenas (around the Sink Hole) and the Rock Nose Boss (south east of the Black Galleon) all provide you with the glorious red stuff.

Onward to Level 60

Now you have a generous supply of everything needed to create Dragonpowder and Explosive Jars. To do this as fast as possible you need to make steelfire quickly. The easiest way to do this is having 5+ Tannerys making Tar and 5+ Firebowls making the steelfire.

Once you’ve made several explosive jars, create a dismantling bench. This allows you to put the Explosive Jar into the bench and you can get back your dragonpowder to re-create more Jars.

You already have the brimstone so it’s really just the case of farming reptiles for hide and making sure your tannerys are constantly producing Tar. Move the tar into the Firebowls and when you have enough steelfire, make dragonpowder and then the bombs.

Rinse and repeat this until you’re level 60.