"Barbarism," said Conan creator Robert E. Howard, "is the natural state of mankind." Civilization is a fluke; a "whim of circumstance." It's a theme Howard wove into virtually every paragraph about his raven-haired Cimmerian, and it seems to manifest itself in undiluted form in Conan Exiles

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Funcom's no stranger to this world — it was, after all, behind 2008's ambitious but troubled massively multiplayer online RPG Age of Conan. But Age of Conan found us far along in Conan's years, when he was already sitting semi-comfortably on the throne of Aquilonia. Conan Exiles finds him in a younger, wilder age, when he's roughly 26 and in between the events of Howard's "Xuthal of the Dusk" and "A Witch Shall Be Born."Much as in Age of Conan, though, the focus here is on his savage world rather than the man himself. We meet him, Bylos says, but only at the beginning. Instead, Conan Exiles will plop Early Access players down on a single 53-square-kilometer map with no loading screens and diverse landscapes evoking everything from the Cimmerian highlands to the Stygian deserts along with the swamps and jungles in between. That's already a bit more than twice the size of Skyrim's main map, and it's almost ready for carving out territories, hunting, growing crops, and building cities. From there, "it'll grow from Early Access," Poe says.Some of the niceties of the actual crafting remain in the air, such as the types and amounts of resources needed and the means of transportation, as well as the number of people who'll have to be involved for big projects like keeps. Poe notes, however, that server administrators will have a "whole host of options for controlling the speeds of things and how things spawn."As befits a game about exiled misfits, Conan Exiles places a heavy emphasis on freedom. No classes exist, and you can pick up a sword and start using it immediately regardless of whether you've fought exclusively with an axe for months. That's not to say there isn't a sense of identity. Players can align with different gods such as Mitra, Derketo, and Set, for instance, and they're free to change religions as they wish."You can follow, say, Mitra, and then decide 'I really want to worship Set today,'" Poe says. "But if you do that, your standing with the opposing god would suffer."Common identities also spring from crafted buildings, clothes, and weapons that draw their inspiration from the Conan mythos' many cultures. Bylos points out that Conan Exiles encourages "certain cultural placements" by making it to easier to find resources to build, say, Stygian buildings in the desert areas, "but that doesn't stop you from going to the forests, harvesting what you like, and going back and building a Bossonian hut in the middle of the desert.""It'll be cumbersome to do, though," Poe adds.This hodgepodginess fits well in Funcom's little patch of Howardian lore. The land here is, in effect, a budding nation of loosely organized squatters that's quietly growing in power, and the surrounding countries don't care much for the situation. From time to time they'll rush in with NPC troops and attempt a purge, which may in turn inspire a server's players to overcome their differences and drive their common enemies before them. On the other hand, it could lead some players to stand idly by while the hordes raze a rival player village. Even more deviously, they could lead the invading soldiers to the village themselves. Yet Bylos and Poe are quick to point out that these villagers won't be completely helpless, and admins can disable the purges if they choose."We would never, ever just destroy everybody's progress," Bylos says, "but there's an element of fortification and preparation for this."The purges are but one environmental reminder that a larger world exists beyond the game — a sense that's often lost in more insular open-world survival titles. Menacing ruins that potentially grow more dangerous at night hide in valleys and on sandswept plains, and snippets of lore pop up on the belongings of fallen soldiers or in the flavor text for crafted weapons."I guess the storytelling approach we're emulating is Dark Souls," Bylos says.That's fitting, as Bylos and Poe emphasize again and again that the Hyborian Age is a brutal, dark era wallowing in decadence. And much as with Age of Conan and Frank Frazetta's famed Conan artwork, Conan Exiles doesn't shy from sexual themes."Definitely there will be nudity on some level," Bylos says, "but there's a question of where it goes and how far it goes."As chatty as they are about many of Conan Exiles' features, Bylos and Poe shy a bit when it comes to describing the actual hacking and slashing. They tell me it's meant to be played in first person (although a third-person view exists) and that it's "fast-paced" and seasoned with "heads flying, limbs flying" and "instantaneous feedback." They tell me they want the individual combat experience to be as exciting as attacking and felling a keep with friends, but they sidestep my stabs at details. At most, they tell me they don't like to use the word "combo" because it gives the mistaken impression that Conan Exiles draws from Age of Conan's combat. As Poe says, rather, they're placing a special emphasis on production values: "the animations, the sound it makes when your put your sword through somebody's chest."At some point, many, many months from now, they say we'll see mounted combat. More immediately, Early Access players should be able to sacrifice other players this summer to gods like Set, although the actual details remain in flux. Bylos tells me they've thought of everything from letting players capture other players to allowing them to cut out hearts on the battlefield and offer the hearts at an altar later. Whatever they choose, he says, they want players to have a good experience."If you're going to be sacrificed, it'll be a quick process," Poe says. "You're not going to be kept in a cage for 10 hours with people keeping you fed."There's much work to do beyond that before Conan Exiles hit Early Access on PC sometime this summer, Bylos and Poe note, but they clearly believe they've got a winning title on their hands."Hyboria is the ultimate savage world, and Conan is the ultimate survivor," Bylos says.As for the ultimate open-world survival game? Well, here's to hoping.

Leif Johnson is a contributing editor to IGN who enjoys chatting with folks on Twitter at @leifjohnson . Much like Robert E. Howard, a fellow Texan, he lives in a rural area that's all too familiar with the oil industry's boom and bust cycle.