Conan Exiles Headhunting 2026: Factions, Rewards and the Live Capture Trick

Conan Exiles Headhunting ran from August 18, 2026 until midnight Central European time between Saturday, August 29, and Sunday, August 30, 2026. The event is over. Players picked one of two factions, collected skulls from sorcerers and bounty hunters and traded them for faction rewards. The biggest lever: capturing targets alive was worth ten times a dead target's skull, according to player observations. Funcom hasn't announced whether or when the event returns, so this article stays up as a recap.

The event was part of patch 2.1.0 and ran only in Conan Exiles Enhanced, the UE5 version. What was in it, how farming worked and which bugs were known is all below.

⏳ The timeframe, and why you see two dates everywhere

Some announcements say "until August 30", others "ends August 29". Both are right: it's the same moment in two time zones. Funcom is based in Oslo, which shares Central European time.

In practice, Sunday was no longer part of it in Europe. Anyone there who logged in on August 30 to hand in their last skulls was too late. The last farming evening was Saturday, August 29.

Funcom never wrote the time out in the text. It sits in the countdown of the official 2.1.0 patch post: August 18, 2026, 14:00 UTC to August 29, 2026, 22:00 UTC.

🩸 How Conan Exiles Headhunting worked

You talked to a faction captain at their camp to join, then collected skulls. The Khitan Bounty Hunters hunted sorcerers, the Dogs of the Desert hunted bounty hunters, and both sides could also hunt players. According to the patch notes, there were sorcerer/magi skulls and bounty hunter/bounty leader skulls. You traded them for currency at the Tribute Basin in your faction camp and spent it at the faction merchants. According to the patch notes, each camp had slightly different offerings.

According to the patch notes, you could switch factions at any point during the event to get a shot at all rewards. According to players on the official forums, both factions handed out the same amounts, just in a different currency. If you wanted to buy out both reward lists, you had to farm twice. A Funcom blog post named the Dogs of the Desert currency Flesh Lucre, while the 2.1.0 patch notes say Blood of the Wicked.

The event ran on both maps, in the Exiled Lands and on the Isle of Siptah. According to the patch notes, targets showed up in both regions, and the official known issues explicitly mention camps on Siptah.

⚡ The most important trick: alive, not dead

You could kill targets and loot the skull, or knock them out, bind them and drag them into the thrall cage at the faction camp. According to the patch notes, imprisoning targets gave more skulls than killing them. A player compared both yields in the official patch discussion thread:

Careful: these numbers are a player observation, not an official figure. Funcom didn't publish values. If they were right, though, a factor of ten made the walk back worth it almost every time, especially since you picked up more targets on the way. For a possible next run that means: bring a truncheon and bindings. Weapon choices for that setup are in our Conan Exiles best weapons guide.

🗺️ Where to farm during the Headhunting event

There were no special event spawn points. According to the patch notes, the sorcerers and bounty hunters were spread across the Exiled Lands and Siptah, but did not spawn in the faction camps themselves. That made the farming rule simple:

• Population beats route. Big NPC camps with lots of humans and short respawns gave more targets than any special path.
• Distance to the faction camp counted double once you captured alive. The walk back was the real cost, not the fight.
• Don't hoard skulls. On Funcom's bug forum a player reported that 17 heads vanished from their inventory. Funcom didn't respond and the status stayed unclear, so turning in regularly was safer than collecting all evening. That's a community report too, not a confirmed bug.

If you were mounted while hunting, our Conan Exiles horse guide covers raising and saddling a horse.

🏆 Rewards in the Headhunting event

The patch notes only list an excerpt of the offer, because the camps stocked slightly different goods. Named explicitly were:

• Khitan Bounty Hunters: the legendary Khitan Head Hunter Bow, plus the Green Smoke Firework and Green Clan Emblem Firework
• Dogs of the Desert: the Ferine Stalker Arcane Staff, plus the Gold Brocade Firework and Gold Clan Emblem Firework
• A new Dogs of the Desert armor: the Ferine Stalker set, named in the 2.1.0 patch notes. The known issues mention that the back of the headdress wasn't attached cleanly to the front.

Leaderboards

Each faction had a leaderboard showing the five players who had gathered the most skulls. According to the patch notes, the top player of each faction received a Faction-specific Reward Cache directly in their inventory when the event ended.

There was no progress bar with fixed milestones. According to the patch notes, rewards grew with consecutive active days, and the first turn-in of the day counted triple. The system was a shop plus a leaderboard, not a battle pass.

Don't confuse it with Bazaar bundles

Alongside the event, Giant-King themed bundles were sold in the Black Lotus Bazaar. Those cost real money or Crom Coins and were not part of the event rewards. Several secondary sources mix the two up. Only the items at the faction merchants could be earned in play.

🐞 Known issues during the event

🧪 Conan Exiles Headhunting FAQ

When exactly did Conan Exiles Headhunting end?

On August 29, 2026, at 22:00 UTC. That's midnight between Saturday and Sunday in Central Europe, 6:00 pm Eastern and 3:00 pm Pacific on Saturday.

Did the event run in single-player and on private servers?

That's unclear. Funcom never said so explicitly, and we didn't find a documented server switch for the event. The leaderboards were meaningless on a solo save anyway.

Did you need the Battle Pass?

No. There was no Battle Pass requirement and no event tiers. Everything ran through the two faction currencies.

Could you switch factions?

Yes, according to the patch notes at any point during the event. Since both sides reportedly paid out the same amounts in different currencies, switching didn't give you a shortcut.

Did the event run in the old UE4 version?

No. Funcom stated that it was available for a limited time in Conan Exiles Enhanced, the UE5 version. What else changed with the update is in our Conan Exiles Enhanced guide.

How many skulls did the legendary weapon cost?

Funcom didn't publish prices. Values from earlier runs float around in wikis but aren't confirmed for 2026. The prices at the in-game merchant were what counted.

Checked against Funcom's official blog post on the Head Hunter event, the patch notes for Conan Exiles Enhanced 2.1.0 including known issues, and the discussion and bug threads on the Funcom forums, as of October 2026 (recap, the event ended on August 29, 2026, 22:00 UTC). Player observations are clearly marked as such and not confirmed by Funcom.