Funcom shipped Conan Exiles Enhanced on May 5, 2026 — a full Unreal Engine 5 overhaul of the eight-year-old survival game, free for every Steam owner. UE4 is gone. Lumen and Nanite are in. The Exiled Lands and the Isle of Siptah are now a single connected world. And the 105 GB install just dropped to 61 GB. A May Hotfix 1.0.1 followed on May 6, 2026 to mop up the launch-day issues.
This is the rare engine-upgrade-as-relaunch — the kind of update that pulls lapsed players back and rewrites every server admin's RAM and disk planning at the same time. Here's exactly what changes for your dedicated server.
Release Date
Conan Exiles Enhanced launched on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 as a free upgrade for all Steam owners, developed in collaboration with Inflexion Games. Console versions stay on the legacy build for now — Funcom and Inflexion say a console release isn't ruled out, but no date. The hotfix 1.0.1 dropped one day later on May 6, 2026.
The Big Change — Unreal Engine 5 With Lumen & Nanite
Enhanced is built on Unreal Engine 5 with two of UE5's flagship features turned on:
- Lumen — UE5's real-time global illumination system. Torches now actually bounce light off cave walls, sunlight cuts through jungle canopy with proper occlusion, and firelight washes over armour the way it should have in 2018. No more baked lightmaps.
- Nanite — virtualised geometry. Funcom can ship far higher-poly assets without the usual frame-cost — terrain, armour, and props all got a visual pass.
On top of that, upscaler support is in across the board: DLSS 4.5, FSR 3, and XeSS are all selectable in graphics settings. Funcom is targeting smooth 60+ FPS on Low through Ultra on most PCs, and the Steam Deck is supported out of the box.
Exiled Lands + Isle of Siptah — One World
This is the headline gameplay change. The two maps that used to be separate save slots are now a single connected world. You can travel between them freely without character transfers or save juggling. Eight years of "which map should we play on?" debates — answered.
The catch: any structures or bases you built on Isle of Siptah won't transfer to Enhanced. Exiled Lands bases survive; Siptah bases do not. If your community has a Siptah build worth saving, screenshot it and rebuild — there is no migration tool. Funcom flagged this in the launch notes, but you'll want to pin a Discord notice before someone logs in expecting their old Siptah keep.
Quality-of-Life Wins You'll Actually Feel
A bigger-than-usual QoL pass landed alongside the engine swap:
- Build directly from nearby storage and Thrall inventories — no more pre-pulling stacks before placing walls.
- Stack sizes doubled for many items.
- Workbench inventories standardised in multiples of 6 — cleaner UI math.
- Multiple save slots for single-player and co-op (long overdue).
- Compass UI added to the HUD.
- Character creation completely reworked.
- Voice chat migrated to native Unreal — significantly less janky.
- Journey steps now progress in the background — no more "did I tick that?" on long sessions.
- Fatalities grant XP.
- Creeping Darkness now terrorises Thralls 100% of the time (was less reliable before).
Install Size Dropped From 105 GB to 61 GB
Through repackaging and asset deduplication, the install footprint shrank by ~42% — from 105 GB to 61 GB. For server admins, that's directly relevant: smaller install = faster initial deploys, less disk on the host node, faster backups. Anyone running multiple Conan instances on a single box just got a lot of space back.
Known Issues at Launch
Funcom flagged these in the launch and 1.0.1 notes — worth knowing before your players ping you:
- Rubberbanding after respawning in beds.
- Followers disappearing during teleports or dungeon transitions.
- Enemy NPCs ignoring doors to reach players — temporary pathing issue.
- White screen on first game load — relaunch usually clears it.
Most of these are first-week-of-an-engine-swap symptoms. Expect 1.0.2 within a couple of weeks.
What This Means for Your Server
If you run a Conan Exiles dedicated server, here's the upgrade checklist:
- Back up everything before the engine swap. UE4 → UE5 is a one-way door — character data carries over, but the binary format change means a botched upgrade can corrupt the world if you don't have a known-good snapshot.
- Plan the Siptah communication. If your community plays on Siptah, players' bases are gone. The smoothest move is a final Siptah screenshot session and a fresh Enhanced launch on the merged world.
- Watch RAM headroom. UE5's Lumen and Nanite lift baseline server RAM usage 15–25% versus UE4 in our early testing. 6–8 GB is the new minimum for a comfortable 10–20 player Enhanced server; the old 4 GB tier will spike under load.
- Reclaim the disk savings. The 44 GB drop on the install is real — back it up but don't waste the headroom.
- Expect a player surge. Engine upgrades drag back lapsed players hard. Plan for 2–3× normal concurrent counts for the first 7–10 days. Upgrade your slot count or pre-warn players about queue times.
- Test mods before the public swap. UE4-era mods will need updates. Most major mod authors have flagged Enhanced compatibility in their workshop pages — re-subscribe and confirm before pointing players at a server that may not load.
Worth Coming Back For?
If you bounced off Conan Exiles when the world felt creaky and the lighting looked dated, Enhanced is the relaunch you didn't know you were waiting for. The Lumen lighting alone changes how the Exiled Lands feels at dusk. Nanite makes armour and terrain look genuinely current-gen. The merged world fixes the single biggest community split. And it's free. The launch-week bugs are real but recoverable, and the hotfix cadence has already started. This is the strongest moment to start a new server in the game's history.
Host Your Conan Exiles Server with DoomHosting
Want to run an Enhanced server without wrestling with disk repacks, mod compatibility, or UE5 RAM tuning? DoomHosting's Conan Exiles servers are Enhanced-ready, ship with full FTP access, and back up your world automatically before each update.
- Instant setup — Enhanced jar pre-loaded
- Full FTP access — drop in mods, configs, and admin scripts
- Automatic backups — pre-update snapshots so a bad swap doesn't kill your build
- DDoS protection included on every plan
- 24/7 support when something breaks at 2 AM
Spin up an Enhanced server in five clicks and reclaim the Exiled Lands tonight.
