Enshrouded vs Conan Exiles (2026)

The 30-second answer

Both are open-world survival games where you gather, build and fight. After that they are aimed at different people.

Enshrouded is a co-op action RPG. You carve a base into voxel terrain, develop a Warrior / Ranger / Wizard build, and push into the Shroud with up to 16 players. PvP is disabled.

Conan Exiles is a brutal PvP-capable sandbox in Hyboria. You capture NPCs, break their will on the Wheel of Pain and turn them into crafters and archers, then build fortresses that other players will try to level with siege weapons.

Private group, no raids, terrain sculpting → Enshrouded. Large public server, PvP sieges, thrall economy → Conan Exiles.

Head to head

The PvP line

This is the biggest divide, and it is absolute.

Enshrouded has PvP disabled. Everything you build is safe from other players, and the threat model is entirely PvE: the Shroud, Fell creatures, Vukah, Scavengers and bosses.

Conan Exiles is built for contested worlds. Its store description leans into dominance — wage war with siege weapons and explosives, watch enemy walls crumble, and summon a towering god avatar to crush buildings and players beneath it. There is a Purge mechanic that throws AI waves at your base on public servers.

If the thought of losing a week of building to a raid crew sounds like the reason you play, Conan Exiles. If it sounds like a reason to quit, Enshrouded.

Thralls versus terrain

Each game has one system the other cannot match.

Conan Exiles has thralls. You capture NPCs, drag them back to your base, and break their will on the Wheel of Pain. They become archers, crafters, entertainers and guards — a workforce and an army. It is a genuinely unique layer that few survival games attempt, and reviewers name it among the game’s strongest features.

Enshrouded has voxel terrain editing. You can level a hillside, dig a cellar, or carve an entire hall into a mountain. 1.0 adds second-generation Adventure Sharing with traps, logic gates and enemy spawners for published community builds.

Neither game has the other’s trick. Pick the one you would actually use.

Combat

• Enshrouded is third-person and build-driven — dodge windows, parries, and a skill tree supporting distinct approaches. Since 1.0 every swing, dodge and block costs stamina, and a timed parry fills the stun bar to open a Merciless Attack.
• Conan Exiles has weighty, deliberate stamina-managed melee with bows and siege. In PvP it becomes a different game entirely; in PvE it supports dungeon bosses.

Note the third-person versus third-person similarity in feel — both are third-person, but Enshrouded’s is Souls-influenced pacing while Conan’s is stamina attrition in a sandbox.

Server costs: the hidden Conan tax

If you are the one paying for the server, this is the part nobody warns you about.

Conan Exiles server pricing in 2026 runs roughly $10–18/month for a small private server (10–20 players), $18–30 for a modded community server (20–40), and $30–45 for a large public server (40–70). RAM needs scale similarly: 8–12 GB small, 16 GB modded, 24–32 GB large.

Two Conan-specific traps:

1. Thralls count like players. Roughly 30 placed thralls is the CPU equivalent of 6–8 additional connected players. A 10-slot plan with a castle full of thralls will lag even with only 10 people online.
2. Building piece count. A castle of around 1,000 pieces adds pressure to every save and every nearby player. Meanwhile Purge events spawn a lot of AI at once, so size for the purge, not the quiet hours.

Enshrouded’s 16-player cap means a much simpler hosting bill, and its voxel edits are its own storage-growth concern rather than a CPU one.

What players actually say

Conan Exiles, distilled from its most helpful Steam reviews: praised for the deep survival sandbox and building systems, the free Unreal Engine visual overhaul, and the thrall and follower system. Complaints centre on forced always-online requirements for single-player, server lag and desync, and predatory monetization.

Its population trend is worth knowing before you commit: daily peak players averaged 17,089 in June 2026, fell to 11,914 in July and 10,187 in August, and sat around 7,020 concurrent in September. That is a fraction of its 53,402 peak from February 2017. The slide is real, though it is an old game with an active mod scene and frequent deep discounts.

What each does better

Enshrouded is better at:

• Groups up to 16 with no raid risk
• Voxel terrain sculpting
• Action-RPG combat with class-flavoured builds
• Being a modern 1.0 release
• Solo play without an online requirement

Conan Exiles is better at:

• PvP, sieges and god-avatar warfare
• The thrall economy — a workforce you capture and break
• Large public servers with big communities
• A mature mod scene and frequent deep sales (90% off recorded)
• Console availability on PlayStation and Xbox today

Verdict by player type

• You want to build without being raided → Enshrouded.
• You want to siege other players → Conan Exiles.
• You want to sculpt terrain → Enshrouded.
• You want an army of thralls → Conan Exiles.
• You are on Xbox or PlayStation → Conan Exiles, until Enshrouded’s Xbox version in spring 2027.
• You want a modern, actively developed 1.0 game → Enshrouded.
• You want the cheapest possible entry → Conan Exiles on a deep sale ($3.99 recorded).

Related guides

• Enshrouded vs Valheim
• Enshrouded vs Palworld
• Enshrouded vs Nightingale
• Enshrouded vs Icarus
• Enshrouded Base Building Guide