Funcom’s experiment with a hardcore, open-world, sandbox MMO in the form of Conan Exiles seems to be aiming for the really hardcore of the hardcore gaming audience. They plan on having a number of dedicated official servers for the Early Access launch, but they’re also offering options for custom dedicated servers hosted by players, along with third-party servers that can be rented.

Over on the official Conan Exiles blog they explained that the game will support mods upon release and they also have plans on opening up a dedicated section for the mods utilizing the Steam Workshop.

A custom version of the Unreal Engine editor will also be released, enabling gamers to create and modify their own mods for the game.

The post also details how the servers will be setup during Early Access. They have plans on offering gamers six different server types from the official channels, including Purist, Relaxed, Hardcore, Role Playing, Experimental and Random. Most of those seem pretty self-explanatory based on your playing habits. Throughout Early Access they will be wiping the servers of their data every 30 days.

Private servers will also be available with the launch of Conan Exiles‘ Early Access client. You’ll be able to make use of dedicated server tools day one.

Server tools will offer administrators full server control, unlike Battlefield 1, which has laughably sparse options. Gamers, in Conan Exiles, will be able to turn on or off PvP, sandstorms, NPCs, modify inventories, setup teleportation, alter the day and night system, and even alter the health and XP stats for players. Of course, resource management, building and even weapons, armor and clothing will also be customizable server-side.

As I mentioned, there’s a lot of control given to the server administrators. At launch they’re expecting to house about 70 players per server, but they will extend this number as the game stabilizes.

Players can look for Conan Exiles to head into Early Access over on the Steam store starting January 31st. For more information on the survival game, feel free to visit the official website.