"I walk in a land of desperation. A wasteland of the exiled and the outcast. Where the broken strive to build and the weak are crushed while the strong survive."

These are the words of Conan the Barbarian as he strides across a desert wasteland, skulls and bones crushing beneath is sandaled feet.

Conan Exiles is first and foremost a multiplayer game that can be enjoyed on both private and public servers, but it will also feature a single-player mode.

Journey through a vast, seamless world filled with the ruins of ancient civilizations and uncover its dark history and buried secrets as you seek to conquer and dominate the exiled lands yourself. Start with nothing but your bare hands and forge the legacy of your clan, from simple tools and weapons to gigantic fortresses and entire cities.

Funcom’s Conan Exiles launched successfully into PC Early Access last week, dominating the #1 spot on Steam’s Global Top Seller List with 320,000 units sold during first week, all development costs have been recouped. Looking ahead, Funcom is working hard to live up to the Early Access goals and will be working together with the community to improve the game and update it with exciting new content and features.

“We are deeply humbled and very grateful for the initial success of Conan Exiles,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “Funcom has gone through some challenging times in recent years and seeing the game we have poured so much time and effort into gain this amount of traction so quickly is very invigorating for everyone who works here. This is just the start of the Early Access adventure and we will do whatever it takes to make sure Conan Exiles turns into a fully-fledged game that has something to offer new and old fans of both Conan and survival games.”

Funcom today also released the custom Conan Exiles Dev Kit allowing creators everywhere to develop modifications for the game. Anyone can now create and upload ‘mods’ to the Conan Exiles Steam Workshop, whether it’s small changes and quality of life improvements, or total conversion mods introducing new creatures, characters, and worlds. To get started, head over to the official unreal Engine website and download the Unreal launcher to access the dev kit.

Funcom will reveal the future of Conan Exiles at this year’s Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, and will also be present on the showfloor at PAX East in Boston, where gamers can drop by to play the game and chat with the developers. Funcom will also be handing out exclusive print copies of its custom Conan Exiles comic book produced by Dark Horse Comics.

The sudden high influx of players immediately from Early Access launch was higher than anticipated, and the team has been working around the clock since launch to iron out the teething issues. The official servers had to be taken temporarily offline due to issues with the original provider, but new official servers are now being brought online and players can also jump onto over 12,000 privately run servers. The developers have patched the game many times the past two weeks, and going forward the team will be divided into those who focus on fixing issues and optimizing performance and those who add new content and features.

You are an exile, one of thousands cast out to fend for themselves in a barbaric wasteland swept in sandstorms and besieged by enemies on every side. Grow crops or hunt animals for food. Harvest resources to build weapons and tools. Build a shelter to survive. Ride across a vast world and explore alone, or band together with other players to build entire settlements and fortified strongholds, and wage war against your enemies as you unleash your fury in savage, fast-paced combat that will see limbs flying and heads rolling.

Enslave the bandits of the exiled lands to do your bidding by breaking them on the grueling Wheel of Pain. Sacrifice the beating hearts of your enemies on the blood-soiled altars of your god to seize true power and glory. Summon the colossal avatar of your god and see them lay waste to your enemies and their homes.

You can even align yourself with the Hyborian gods, building altars to their glory and sacrificing the bloody hearts of enemy players upon them to shift the balance of power in your favor. Players will also have to face the purge: a special event where NPC armies from the neighboring kingdoms sweep in to destroy the progress that the exiles have made. Will you stand together with your fellow players against the purge, or will you use it to your advantage?

Just remember: in this brutal land of vengeful gods, bloodthirsty cannibals, and vicious monsters, survival is more than tracking down food and water. Explore mysterious ruins in search of treasure and knowledge, but beware the risk of your mind being corrupted by the dark forces of the world. Traverse vast sand dunes and seek shelter from scouring sandstorms sweeping across the burning sands. March into war against your enemies and unleash your savage fury in brutal combat. Go in unprepared and it will be your head rolling and limbs flying.

Conan Exiles is not an empty sandbox. It is a world rich in history where you must discover the knowledge and secrets of ancient civilizations as you struggle to build your own.