Conan Exiles developer Funcom holds an AMA on Reddit concerning gameplay bugs as well as planned, already controversial, features for the 'brutal' survival game.

A few days ago, Conan Exiles developer Funcom had an ask-me-anything session on Reddit. Among the issues discussed were the game's planned patches for launch bugs, some new features the studio is working on, and, of course, some of the more controversial features that the game has, especially the full-frontal nudity and the slider that lets players decide on the size of their protagonist's sexual features.

It's this last feature that has propelled the newly launched MMO into infamy, as YouTubers and reviewers alike have posted NSFW videos making fun of it. The developers of Conan Exiles have defended the genital customization option by saying that it would be strange not to have it since players start the game off naked; in the AMA they added that the penis-size slider was put into the game in the name of "equality," as the size of the breasts of female protagonists are also decided by the player.

That players start off naked may appear strange, but the world of Conan Exiles is one where life is nasty, brutal, and short: players need to adapt to survive as quickly as possible in the harsh environment where, as the Conan Exiles trailer says, players have only the option to "live or die." Funcom has from the very beginning emphasized the brutality of its MMO and seems to even have tried to use it as a marketing tactic: there are few games, after all, where players can enslave NPCs and make them dance for their amusement.

This courting of controversy will be taken up a notch by the developers in the coming weeks: in the AMA, Funcom announced that it will include a gameplay feature where players can sacrifice NPCs to gain a stat boost. Also, they hope to have an option for players where after PvP combat they can humiliate their opponents by castrating them. Neither of these will, however, be implemented until the bugs that are currently plaguing Conan Exiles are fixed: Funcom has promised the developers are working hard on eliminating all the issues players have encountered.

Another problem the Conan Exiles team addressed is that of servers: apparently the partner they had initially teamed up with was not able to handle the unexpectedly high demand for the game, causing numerous connection issues and dropped sessions. Funcom is currently in negotiation with several other companies to solve this issue, but were not able to give a timetable on when servers would be running at full capacity again. Whether these issues were related to the rampant piracy Conan Exiles has experienced remains unknown.

The upshot of the AMA is that Funcom has its work cut out for it: besides technical issues the studio is also dealing with the controversy Conan Exiles has generated. With both the PR and IT departments working overtime, it might be some months yet before the new features are implemented. It will be curious to see how the future looks for the company and the projects they currently have on the backburner, like the announced MMO The Park.

Conan Exiles is currently available in an early access stage on PC.