After over a year of Early Access on PC and Xbox One, Conan Exiles will finally receive a full release next month. For those who haven’t been keeping up with the game, it really has come a long way over the past 14 months – check out the new “Countdown to Launch” trailer for evidence of that.

　　Conan Exiles developer Funcom promises a full slate of new features and content for the full launch, including a revamped battle system, new areas, and much more! Check out a full rundown of the additions, below.

　　New Combat

　　The new combat system is very different and a huge improvement on the old one. The first thing you might notice is the new visual style. All weapons (swords, daggers, hammers, maces, spears, great swords etc) are getting their own attacks and animations. The attacks consist of a wide range of lunges, sweeps, jumps, cleaves, slashes and dashes. This makes combat much more fluid and interesting with a host of different attacks to perform.

　　All weapons have different light and heavy attacks which can be chained one after the other. Every attack in the chain is different, with the finishers often being particularly potent. The weapons also cause different effects as you keep landing hits in the chain. For example, daggers add bleed, great swords cripple and hammers sunder. You can combine light and heavy attacks as you see fit without breaking the chain.

　　Volcano and Swamp

　　With launch comes two new areas and the map is being greatly expanded. Above The Frozen North you can see a mighty volcano, still quite active with rivers of lava running down its slopes. If you climb into the volcano you find powerful resources like obsidian plus a cult worshipping an ancient power.

　　Follow the big river east and you will find the swamp. This huge new area offers deep jungles, wet steamy marshes and a sunny coastline filled with pirates. You can build well-protected castles or even entire cities up in the massive trees of the swamp.

　　The Purge

　　You fight for dominance over the Exiled Lands and control the landscape with the castles and cities you can build. With the purge the environment fights back to drive you from the land. You must ready your defenses as groups of frost giants, locusts, undead, relic hunters, gorillas or any of the many other groups of creatures or exiles in the area will attack your base. The type of purge attacking your castle depends on where you have built it.

　　When a purge is about to happen, you will get clear notifications and you can also see on your map exactly where the NPCs are attacking. They will attack in waves and continue hitting your buildings if no thralls or players are fighting back. This new feature adds extra depth to the game, especially for those who like to play on PVE servers or play single-player. If you are afraid that hordes of creatures will destroy your hard-earned base, you do not need to worry. The purge can be completely turned off on private servers or in single-player games, and all the purge’s settings can be tweaked, such as strength, duration, number of waves, how quickly the purge meter fills and much more.

　　Perks, Gear, and Warpaint

　　The attributes system is also getting an important revamp. For every ten increases in each attribute you get a unique perk which unlocks a special ability. Along with this system comes the introduction of many new armor sets which increase your attributes and warpaints that further add to attributes.

　　Farming, Fast Travel, and Content Rebalance

　　A major change is that players no longer heal over time as they play Conan Exiles. Now you must eat food or drink potions to regain your health and all healing is done over time. We have introduced farming to make it a bit easier to get your hands on many of these resources. You can now build planters in your base which allow you to grow different kinds of crops, like lotus flowers used in potions or for example hops, leavening or highland berries.

　　With world map greatly increasing in size it can take quite some time to travel from one region to another. To make this process easier we are introducing the map room which you can build in your own settlement. As you explore the world you will discover monoliths which you can attune to your bracelet. Once attuned you can teleport to that monolith from your map room.

　　Finally, in addition to all the new features and content coming to Conan Exiles we have also done a major content rebalance. We have changed the areas where creatures spawn and how they behave in the world. You won’t see large groups of random monsters just wandering the map like before, instead they have more specialized habitats and act more naturally in the world. The rebalance has also been done to feats, crafting ingredients, and where you find resources and crafting recipes.

　　Phew! That’s a lot of new stuff! Have any readers stuck with Conan Exiles through its Early Access period? What are your thoughts on how the game has developed? And if you’ve held out on Conan Exiles so far, do you plan to give the game a shot when the full version hits?

　　Conan Exiles launches in full on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 on May 8.