Rust requires a massive time commitment for those who wish to be more than prey for high-end players, and solo players who are not willing to invest upward of 5 hours each day will struggle to remain competitive on official servers.
While this level of commitment is possible, and many solo players have run rings around groups of inexperienced players, Rust is meant to be played with others, and solo players will frequently find themselves the target of clans who have no qualms in destroying the hard work of a solo player just for the fun of it.
While some boosted community servers make solo levelling easier, they are often Pay2Win, with players being given the option to purchase top-end armour and weapons with real-world currency, the literal definition of Pay2Win.
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
To ensure no single player (or group of players) becomes too powerful, most rust official and community servers frequently wipe, with weekly, bi-weekly and monthly wipes being the most common.
Rust utilises a hybrid monetisation model that revolves around the sale of cosmetic skins (PC and Console) and item bundles (PC), which allow players to craft DLC-exclusive items that offer no competitive advantage, such as swimming pools, instant cameras, megaphones and pianos.
Like all items in Rust, crafted DLC items can be shared with teammates (or lotted by enemies), which allows everyone to join in the fun, even if they do not own the DLC in question.
The Instant Camera ( Sunburn Pack DLC) allows players to take in-game screenshots and display them in photo frames around their base, a great way to remember epic battles and fun times with friends!
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
While Rust has not always been the best-looking game, and for many years, it was the ugly duckling of the survival genre, as of 2023, Rust on PC is visually stunning (for the genre) and manages to do so without taking any major performance hits.
Unfortunately, Rust Console Edtion is another story, and returning to Rust Console Edtion after playing Rust on PC felt like taking a step backwards; with muddy low-resolution textures and a general lack of optimisation, Rust Console Edtion looks and feels worse than Rust did in 2013, most likely due to the developers trying to support 8th generation hardware, which is 2widely accepted to be unsuitable for open world survival games, which as a rule require more powerful hardware than similarly sized games from other genres.
Any game that allows players to design bases will result in performance drops on lower-end hardware, with even relatively well-optimised titles such as Conan Exiles struggling to render very large bases on moderately high-end hardware.
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
Rust is one of the only survival games with next to no PvE content and offers little in the way of intelligent AI to easily enable server owners to create their PvE content, while there are wild animals in the world and NPCs who issue rudimentary missions to players, attempting to play unmodded Rust as a purely PvE experience is not all that enjoyable and is comparable to buying a prime steak just for the butter sauce.
While the developers have done little to encourage a PvE community to form, Rust remains one of the most popular survival games on PC while being competitive on console and, thanks to a thriving content creator community, is likely to remain in the public eye for many years to come.
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
The Rust community is horrible, and I do not use that word lightly; while all PvP game communities have elements of toxicity, Rust takes this to the extreme and finding even 1 or 2 players per server who are not toxic is an immense challenge.
I am well used to PvP games, but Rust is the only game where even the newest player will as soon stab you in the back as look at you, and while the thrill of not being able to trust anyone is fun at first, knowing that everyone wants to kill you, even when they don’t have to gets old fast.
Starting fresh on a new server, I was killed no less than six times by fully geared players, many of whom did not even bother to loot my body of its worthless belongings, instead opting to dump and despawn them to cause frustration.
While Rust is toxic, many people just want to have a good time, and making friends is possible for those willing to take a risk.
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
Players are given no control over the appearance of their character, with each player being given a random appearance based on their steam64 ID; while this is a nice ID, it does not do much to aid immersion and, in some instances, leads to unfortunate instances of gross misogyny and racism, with immature players making racist and sexist remarks about the appearance of their characters.
Some players have found ways to influence their character’s appearance, but as of 2023, the only sure way to change your character’s appearance is to use a new Steam account and hope for the best.
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
Rust (PC) and Rust Console Edition, while sharing many similarities, are on divergent development paths, with the developers confirming that some PC updates will not be making their way to Rust Console Edition and that Rust Console Edition will follow a separate roadmap, with the possibility of features and updates being added that will not make their way to PC.
Rust was one of the first mainstream games to allow players to “bare it all”, and while there is something to be said for starting naked and afraid on the beaches of a hostile land, there is no need to make everyone naked.
I would honestly rather they had stuck to underwear and lowered the age rating a notch, which would open Rust up to a much wider demographic, many of whom feel uncomfortable seeing full-frontal male and female nudity.
While the PC client allows players to censor nudity, Rust Console Edition removes the ability to be naked, with all players starting the game in their underwear.
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
Pictured: Swimwear “underwear” skins are available as part of the Sun Burned DLC pack.
Rust loads incredibly slowly on PC, and this is never more evident than when playing on a custom server, where load times can exceed 5 minutes, even when Rust is installed on a top-end NvMe drive, which can load even the largest and most process intensive games (such as a heavily modded Ark Survival Evolved install) in as little as 10 seconds.
Curiously, this issue does not affect the Rust Console Edition, which allows me to connect to any Rust Official Server in less than 20 seconds.
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
Rust allows players to craft and repair a wide selection of vehicles, from small utility vehicles all the way up to powerful attack helicopters; unfortunately, Rust Console Edition currently lacks most means of transportation, including rideable horses, helicopters, and modular cars, which will not be making their way to Rust Console Edition anytime soon due to hardware limitations imposed by 8th generation consoles.
Image credit Rust - Published by Facepunch Studios and developed by Facepunch Studios.
Rust is a survival video game developed by Facepunch Studios, Double Eleven( Rust Console Edition) and published by Facepunch Studios, it was released on 11 December 2013 and retails for $39.99+.
Rust is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Rust is in active development, and both PC and Console versions receive content updates, performance enhancements, balancing tweaks and bug fix patches on a regular basis.
As of December 2023, around 1,500,000 people play Rust on a fairly regular basis.
Rust is extremely active, and instantaneous matchmaking is possible in most regions 24/7; however, in very remote regions, there may be wait times of around one minute to find a full lobby.
Rust supports:
Rust only supports crossplay between Playstation and Xbox consoles at this time.
Rust offers the following matchmaking options:
The Rust in-game store sells:
Premium Currency is only available for Rust Console Edtion at this time.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Rust is rated PEGI 16+ and contains the following:
Rust is a fantastic game, but it is not for everyone, and I do not recommend it for those with limited free time or who struggle to engage with highly toxic communities.
