Conan Exiles creative director on why the game lets players own slaves
https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/15/17353390/conan-exiles-slavery-pc-ps4-xbox-one
Conan Exiles is a game with many strong, albeit disparate inspirations. Its art style draws heavily from the iconic work of Frank Frazetta, while the gameplay is directly inspired by successful sandbox survival titles like Ark: Survival Evolved. But the narrative, such as it is, and world-building are inspired by author Robert E. Howard’s original work, which was crystalized in the 1982 movie Conan The Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Fans may remember how, in an early time-lapse, Schwarzenegger’s Conan grew to manhood toiling on the Wheel of Pain. At the time, Conan was enslaved. It’s a small moment in the movie, but slavery is a recurring piece of the Conan universe. In order to be true to the source material, developer Funcom decided to include themes of slavery in Exiles. In fact, Funcom went a step further, turning slavery into a game mechanic.