Conan Unconquered (PC) and Conan (Xbox 360)

When I first began reading Conan the Barbarian, I could help but want to explore the world in a more interactive experience. This led me to looking into various Conan the Barbarian video games, which seem to be very hit and miss (mostly miss.) One of the more recent games was advertised as an RTS called Conan Unconquered. Having grown up playing Command and Conquer, I was intrigued at trying out a Conan RTS, as long as my off the shelf HP All-in-One PC could handle it. Lucky for me, the game came out in 2019, and was on sale on Steam, so I took a chance and was rewarded with the game running perfectly fine on my very non-gaming PC.

I learned rather quickly that Unconquered was not in fact and RTS, but more of a horde defense game. Each level, you take time to build up your defenses, scout for supplies, and prepare as the timer counts down for the next wave of attack. It’s a rather basic gameplay loop, but one that I found that I enjoyed quite a bit. The first day I played, I kept telling myself, “Just one more wave” until several hours had passed.

The voice acting for Conan is brash and unlikeable. He’s annoyed if you ask him to walk somewhere, and while maybe that could fit the character, it doesn’t make for a very fun game playing experience when every time you move Conan, he sounds like a bratty teenager who doesn’t want to do it. I’m not sure what the point of that was.

The graphics are good; the game is very responsive and has some great settings to speed up or slow down the attacks. I don’t know if I really felt like I was in the Hyborian Age, but I had fun playing the game, nonetheless.

My second Conan video game experience came thanks to the backwards compatibility of Xbox Series X. Conan, the 2007 Xbox 360 game published by THQ, is available for purchase and occasionally goes on sale for around five dollars. This game was more along the lines of what I would normally play, being that it’s a third person adventure game and to be honest, a God of War clone.

The voice acting is a huge step-up with Ron Perlman voicing Conan and composure Mike Reagan did a great job really capturing the feel of Howard’s writing. The graphics are a bit on the rough side, but I appreciate the Frazetta inspiration and even the ample nudity.

The game is very average, and I have a feeling it might have even felt a bit dated in 2007, but with that being said, it’s still a solid game that is a lot of fun to play. From what I’ve read, this is most likely the peak Conan video game experience, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing it. I’d recommend it for under $10 for fans of either Conan or early God of War games.

I did play Conan Exiles for around an hour, but I don’t feel like I experienced enough of it to formulate any real opinions. If it gets added back to GamePass, I’m sure I’ll check it out further. I’m not sure if I’m going to dig any deeper into past Conan games, especially considering their reception. There was a GameCube game released, but after watching a few minutes on YouTube it really does not look like a fun game to play in 2025.