Conan the Barbarian has had a lot of video games come to the forefront over the years. Whether it’s Conan Exiles which is infamous for letting you let it all hang out, the Age of Conan MMORPG, or the 2007 hack-and-slash game, there’s some variety to be had for fans of the barbarian warrior. On the cartoony roguelike end, though, we recently got Conan Chop Chop, which plays more like Binding of Isaac than God of War. How well does this franchise transition into this niche genre?

One look at the Steam reviews for Conan Chop Chop paints a distressing, worrisome picture. It sits at 20 Mostly Negative reviews and a lifetime 68% approval of Mixed. The 65% of negative reviews in the past two weeks, well into the game’s third month of release, note that it is completely unplayable online. As Conan Chop Chop targets a four-player co-op focus, this is a far cry from what the devs/publishers want to see.

When Conan Chop Chop does work (AKA the Tutorial), it plays like an above-average roguelike. There are some interesting mechanics such as timed parrying, an ultimate that builds up, and different abilities/weapons between the four playable characters. I did like that instead of heading into a dungeon, as with just about every other roguelike, Conan Chop Chop has you traverse different terrains and had something of a hub world for you to explore.

The particular issue in my playthroughs of Conan Chop Chop was that the screen you see above, telling me to head to Darkwood, was plastered smack-dab in the middle of my screen and wouldn’t go away. It didn’t matter if I rebooted, switched from mouse/keyboard to controller, or reinstalled the game either. This glitch persisted and rendered my playthroughs impossible. It seems like something that could be fixed with a few lines of code, but we’re well past the release date for a simple hotfix to be deployed. That tells me that there won’t be any updates to come in the near future.

Games releasing in a rough state are almost a given in the gaming industry at this point. Typically it’s AAA games getting rushed to market to make it before the fiscal year ends, but sometimes indie passion projects can disappoint as well. Thankfully, these messes get cleaned up in the coming days, weeks, months, and in Cyberpunk 2077‘s case, years. However, there hasn’t been a peep from Conan Chop Chop‘s team since April. With a dismal 300 total reviews for the title, it can be assumed that this didn’t meet expectations and the team can’t even afford to take another crack at it.

It’s a bummer when a game catches one’s interest and ends up being a letdown. That’s definitely the case for Conan Chop Chop, which looks like a blast with pals and maybe even solo, but at the time of this article, it’s hardly worth playing its demo on Steam. Who knows – maybe one day this game gets the attention it needs and comes into its own, but for right now, it’s a waste of time and money for anyone that purchases it.

A PC Review Copy of Conan Chop Chop was provided by Funcom for this Review.

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Conan Chop Chop

$14.99

3

Score

3.0/10

Pros

• Has Potential For Fun
• Decent Character Variety

Cons

• Unplayable for Many
• Riddled with Bugs
• Online Community is Extinct