Conan Exiles just got its biggest overhaul in eight years
Funcom launched Conan Exiles Enhanced on May 5, 2026, the game's eighth anniversary, bringing a full Unreal Engine 5 upgrade to the Steam version. Developed in collaboration with Inflexion Games (the studio behind Nightingale), this is not a content patch or a DLC. The engine underneath the entire game has been replaced, and that changes a lot of things you need to know about before loading in. If you're on Steam, you need to act. If you're on Epic Games Store or Windows Store, you need to understand what you're losing.
Lumen GI transforms Sepermeru
What are the four UE5 rendering upgrades in Conan Exiles Enhanced?
According to Funcom's announcement, the Enhanced version introduces four specific rendering technologies:
- Lumen Global Illumination: UE5's dynamic real-time lighting system, meaning light bounces and shifts naturally based on time of day and environment.
- Nanite Geometry: Virtualized micropolygon geometry that allows far more surface detail without the traditional polygon budget constraints.
- Virtual Shadow Maps: High-resolution shadow rendering that produces sharper, more accurate shadows across the world.
- Improved Terrain: Reworked ground geometry and surface quality throughout the Exiled Lands and Isle of Siptah.
The performance target is 60+ FPS across Low, Medium, High, and Ultra presets on most PCs. Steam Deck is also supported. One genuinely surprising detail: despite all these visual improvements, the client size drops from 120GB to just 40GB, a reduction of two-thirds.
The update also adds full NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution, Frame Generation, Multi Frame Generation, and Reflex support, making it one of the more complete DLSS 4 implementations in a survival game right now.
Before vs. after UE5 lighting
What else is new beyond the graphics?
The visual overhaul gets most of the attention, but several quality-of-life changes came with it that will affect how you actually play.
World connectivity: The Exiled Lands and Isle of Siptah are now one continuous world. You can travel between them with the same character via teleport, and multiplayer servers can host both maps simultaneously. Isle of Siptah still requires owning that DLC.
Crafting: The crafting system now pulls ingredients from nearby storage and follower inventories automatically. You no longer need to carry every material on your person.
Multiple single-player characters: Previously, Conan Exiles limited you to one single-player character per save. Enhanced lets you maintain and switch between multiple single-player characters per account.
Revamped UI: Cleaner menus with improved navigation throughout.
Character customization: The character creator has been expanded, including an enhanced endowment slider.
Mod support: Several popular mods will be compatible at launch, and the Mod Development Kit has been refreshed.
If you play primarily for crafting and base-building, the automatic ingredient pulling from nearby storage alone is worth the upgrade. Inventory management in the old version was genuinely tedious.
Auto-pull from nearby storage
What happens to Steam players who stay on Legacy?
Steam players can choose to remain on Conan Exiles Legacy (the UE4 version) by selecting that option in the Funcom Launcher. The catches are significant:
- Official PC servers were taken down on May 4, 2026 at 15:00 UTC and migrated to UE5. Any character still on an official server at that point was permanently updated to UE5 with no revert option.
- To avoid forced migration, players needed to use the Server Transfer Tool before that deadline to move their character off the official server.
- Legacy gets no future major updates and no official servers going forward.
If you had Crom Coins unspent, Funcom recommended spending them before May 5. The Bazaar is disabled on Legacy, meaning Crom Coins have no valid use on that version.
What do Epic Games Store and Windows Store players need to know?
This is the part that stings. Conan Exiles Enhanced launches exclusively on Steam. Epic Games Store and Windows Store players are automatically moved to Conan Exiles Legacy with no action required, but they carry the same limitations as Steam Legacy players:
There are currently no plans for a console version of Conan Exiles Enhanced.
How do you migrate your character from Exiled Lands servers?
For Exiled Lands players on official or private servers, Funcom has made the process relatively straightforward. Your character, base, followers, inventory, and follower inventories all transfer to UE5. The Server Transfer Tool handles the process, and as reported by Massively OP when the R15 update launched in April 2026, character transfers preserve levels, progression, items, hotbars, followers, and follower inventories.
The transfer moves one character at a time. Plan accordingly if you have multiple characters across different servers.
What about Isle of Siptah players? Why is migration harder?
Isle of Siptah players face a more painful transition. Because the island has been physically merged into the Exiled Lands (requiring a coordinate system change), Isle of Siptah bases cannot be preserved in the UE5 update.
Funcom's recommended approach:
- Dismantle your base before the transition.
- Store all materials and valuables in your followers' inventories.
- After the update, you'll spawn at a point in the Exiled Lands.
- Travel back to the Isle of Siptah to rebuild.
The base loss is a real cost for anyone who spent significant time building on Siptah. The follower inventory workaround saves your materials, but the structure itself is gone. Check the Conan Exiles wiki patch notes on FextraLife for the full technical details on how the coordinate migration works.
How big is Conan Exiles Enhanced, and what does the game contain now?
Funcom marked the eighth anniversary with a full content count. As of the Enhanced launch:
- 15 million players across the game's lifetime
- 45 major updates delivered since launch
- 69 square kilometers of explorable land
- 13 biomes and 23 dungeons
- 24 unique building sets with 1,075 building pieces
- 1,731 armor pieces and 1,350 weapons
- 1,128 decorations and 7 religions and avatars
Those numbers put into perspective why the Journey system (the game's 10-chapter progression guide with 10 steps each) still takes serious time to complete even for experienced players. For a full breakdown of the Journey chapters and steps, the Conan Exiles Fandom wiki's upcoming features page tracks planned additions alongside current content.
The Journey system grants large XP bonuses for each completed step, and completing early steps from later chapters gives even more experience. It remains one of the fastest paths to level 60.
What should you do right now if you're a returning player?
If you're coming back to Conan Exiles after the Enhanced launch, here's the short version of what matters:
- Steam players: Update through the Funcom Launcher. You're on UE5 by default unless you opted into Legacy.
- Isle of Siptah players: Your base is gone. Your followers and their inventories should be intact if you followed the pre-migration steps.
- Exiled Lands players: Your character, base, and followers transfer cleanly.
- Epic/Windows Store players: You're on Legacy. No official servers, no major updates, no Bazaar.
- Crom Coins: Spend them if you haven't. They do nothing on Legacy.
For the latest on what Funcom has planned next for Conan Exiles Enhanced, browse more guides and news coverage at GAMES.GG to stay current as the post-launch updates roll in.