The year 2013  was a big year for games. Titles like Grand Theft Auto V, The Last of Us, Battlefield 4, Dota 2 and a whole slew of others. Along with the release of the latest generation of consoles, it was hard to get in the spotlight for many non-triple A titles. One of the many titles released during 2013 was “Rust". “Rust” is a survival game made by Facepunch Studios. Facepunch Studios has made a few other very popular titles including Garry’s Mod and Trouble in Terrorist Town. Though “Rust” is not very similar to its siblings made by the same studio, it is often compared to Ark: Survival Evolved, which I will be doing very often as well because of their similarities . A few others it’s compared to are the Arma Series and The Forest. All of those games are survival games, but they share another trait, their development.

Being released in December of 2013, almost everyone would expect that it would be a fully released game. But, along with two of the other three titles , it is still listed as an early access game. This is because it is still in development. Facepunch releases almost weekly updates to the game, fixing bugs or adding new items to the game, even after three years. Many people in the “Rust” community love this about the game, but some fear it will end up like Ark,  in a development hole, not focusing on optimization of the game, instead on DLC (Downloadable Content). Ark is also on a more recent graphics engine, the Unreal 4. “Rust”, like many other games, mobile games that is, is run on the Unity engine, the one that was released in 2005. While it can be beautiful looking at a sunset on the beach or something similar, basic things in the game like landscape and forests are below average.

That doesn’t mean the geography of “Rust” isn’t good, quite the opposite in fact. Unlike Ark: Survival Evolved, which only has three official maps, two of which are DLC. “Rust” has three official maps, none of which are DLC, and a limitless number of procedurally generated maps. Players can also create their own maps and upload them to the Steam Workshop for other players to try out, and some maps can even become part of the game. Another similarity the games share are the ability to build structures. These can range anywhere from massive castles in the middle of the ocean to small cabins at the top of a mountain. “Rust’s” building mechanics are also very easy to learn and require very few resources to actually start to build a home. Once a player gains a grasp on building and settle down to a small fortress, a player will start to gain more resources and those will turn into a larger base, which in turn, more resources.

Players snowball in “Rust”, where the stronger players usually get stronger and weak players stay weak. Usually until getting lucky. That might sound unfair but every week or two weeks, most servers are wiped, everything removed. The time in which they are wiped is usually caused by the amount of players on the server. And the amount of players is almost always over crowded or close to empty.  The reason that most servers wipe is to keep the server fair and make sure it doesn’t become overcrowded with structures.

Now all of this might make “Rust” sound great, but like all other games, it has its flaws. Some of its downfalls are the wildlife, the graphics in game, the players and community, and the fact that there is no single player. I think the worst of these is the wildlife in game, mainly the fact that there is almost none. There are six animals in total in the game, bears and wolves, which are the only enemies aside from other players, and deer, horses, boars, and chickens. The animals in game are some of the glitchiest things that I have ever seen in any game. While being chased by a bear, players have to run around or over rocks and trees, but bears can go straight through. See a bear down on a beach and think you’re safe up on the cliff high above? Bears can also scale sheer rock faces. Finally kill the deer you have been chasing for fifteen minutes? There is a chance that the body has fell through the ground and your arrows and loot have sunk through the ground. Hunting the deer might have been easier, if players could practice in single player.

But they can’t, so every player has to learn on the fly, with other more experienced players everywhere. This gives the game a very steep learning curve. There’s also no tutorials, so the only way to fully get into the game is by searching it on the forums. You may also want to try, if your computer is able, to make your game look better by changing some graphic settings. Sadly, this is close to impossible because even on the highest settings, the game still has graphics far inferior to other games released around the same time or even earlier. Yes, graphics don’t make a game but if someone has spent a lot of money on a high end graphics card, it’s understandable that they would want play games on their highest settings and have them look nice.

The last and close to worst thing about “Rust” is the community. The best word that almost everyone uses is “toxic”. As I said earlier, it can be very hard for players to start off because of higher skilled players, and those players show no mercy. Most in “Rust” kill on sight because of a very common term “Nakeds have nothing to lose”. Nakeds, being players with no gear, having no reason not to try and kill because if they don’t have success, they will be at the same level as before. Even though most of the community is bad, there are still sometimes nice players to group up with and fun times to be had with random people you meet.

All of those flaws, while it would be great if the developers could fix them, create a unique experience that is hard to find in many other games. It is very uncommon for me to find a game with a developing team so dedicated to their game and making it better and more fun for the community. All in all Rust is well worth the buy and especially if it is ever on sale, which is very often thanks to Steam. Overall I give it an 8/10.