Every Conan story Robert E. Howard ever wrote is already a horde-survivor run.

One man drops into a hostile place. The waves escalate. A sorcerer-king waits at the end. He walks out alone. That’s “Black Colossus.” That’s the climax of “The Hour of the Dragon.” That’s “Beyond the Black River.” For ninety years, the only place that fantasy lived was on the page.

On April 9, it got a controller when Conan the Barbarian invades Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel in a full DLC drop. Jotunnslayer is the best-looking horde-survivor on the market, with a rating of 84% Very Positive on Steam, full 3D in a genre dominated by pixel art, built around a pantheon system where Norse gods grant you blessings in exchange for the right kind of violence. 

Which sets up the most Howard-coded joke imaginable. We’ll get to it.

Conan’s Kit in Jotunnslayer is Crom’s Philosophy in Code

Conan’s kit is built around a single mechanic called Triumph. You build stacks by killing. The stacks let you shrug off damage. The more carnage you generate, the harder you become to kill until you’re a juggernaut wading through a battlefield that should have buried you ten waves ago.

What’s funny about that is that’s literally just how Howard wrote the character. Conan in the prose gets more dangerous as the fight gets worse: the wounds feed the fury and the fury feeds the body count. 

Which brings us to the joke. Every other character in Jotunnslayer prays to a god like Odin, Thor or Freyja, and their power comes down from above in the form of blessings. Conan’s god, on the other hand, is Crom, and Crom is famous because he doesn’t help anyone. Praying to Crom is what cowards do.

So that means that the mechanic of Triumph is the only kit in the game that has to be earned in real time, by the player, with violence. 

Crom would approve.

Three Paths, One Lifetime

The DLC for Jotunnslayer ships Conan with three sub-classes – what the game calls Paths of Legend – and the design team was paying attention, because each one is a different chapter of the same man’s life.

The first is titled Zamorian Rogue. This is a lightning-fast dual-wielder who converts Triumph into endless dash charges and evasion. This is young Conan: the thief, the wall-climber, the one who hadn’t yet learned that sitting on a throne pays better than picking pockets in Shadizar.

The next is titled Stygian Gladiator. Built around classic sword-and-shield fight, anchored by defensive scaling, and enhanced with stuns that compound with every Triumph stack, this is mid-period Conan when he is the pit fighter, the slave-galley survivor, the mercenary who learned to take a hit because the alternative was the meat hook.

Finally, there is the King of Aquilonia. In this sub-class, Conan wields his heavy greatsword with raw power to cleave and level whole sections of the screen. This is the crowned Conan, the one who took Aquilonia by force and held it because nobody could pull him off the throne.

Pick whichever Conan you want. They’re all canon.

Welcome to Stygia

The DLC also drops a new map in the form of Stygia: the dark beating heart of the Hyborian Age, home of Set’s serpent cult, birthplace of Thoth-Amon, and the place Howard’s worst sorcery comes from when it comes at all. 

The map plays into the setting’s macabre DNA. You’ll fight across sun-scorched terrain against necromantic forces in ancient ruins that may or may not be illusions themselves. It’s a level mechanically engineered around the disorientation Stygian sorcery causes on the page, where you can’t trust what you’re looking at, and the things you can’t see are trying to eat you.

Waiting at the center is the Undead Jotunn: an ancient Stygian wizard-king who deploys forbidden magic and deceptive attack patterns. If that description rings a bell, it should. This is the kind of opponent Conan was built to kill, and the kind he was built to barely survive killing.

And All The Free Stuff

Two major additions launch alongside the DLC, free for everyone who already owns the base game.

Local co-op is the headline. Bring a friend into your Hyborian campaign where one of you can be Conan, and the other can be whoever they want. Enjoy blazing through two-player shared runs featuring drop-in assistance and alternating level-up choices that keep the pace from collapsing under coordination. It’s hell – but it’s fun. 

The other addition is a new deity called the God of Fate which offers  a high-stakes blessing system that converts gold and resources into run-defining power spikes … or total ruin, if your luck runs cold. It’s a beautiful new toy for everyone in the roster. 

Conan, of course, won’t need it. 

April 9

The Conan the Barbarian DLC and the free Local Co-op update launched April 9, 2026, on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Howard’s Conan was always a horde survivor. Now you get to be him.