Rust — patch notes and updates
Stored observation / content update:
Dated developer announcements recorded from Steam. Open the source for the complete update.
| Update | Date | Excerpt / source |
|---|---|---|
| SPRING CLEAN | 2026-04-02 | NEW ITEM: ARMOURED LADDER HATCHThe Armoured Ladder Hatch is a new top-tier construction. A direct upgrade from the Metal Ladder Hatch, the Armoured Ladder Hatch is built for players who want maximum durability on their vertical access points.Unlocked at Tier 3, it’s available in both square and triangle variants, slots straight into existing frames.Unlocked at Tier 3, it’s available in both square and triangle variants, slots straight into existing frames.NEW ITEM: WATER WHEELRenewable energy is the best energy. You liked wind and solar? Now it's time for another classic, Hydro!Water wheels can be placed in rivers to passively generate electr |
| SHIPSHAPE | 2026-03-05 | EXTENDED DAYTIMEThis month we've extended the amount of time each day has sunlight by around 20 minutes. The duration of night is unchanged (around 10 minutes). This should hopefully allow for more time for daylight activities while still keeping nighttime tactics viable.BOAT BUILDING IMPROVEMENTS & FIXESThere have been a ton of small fixes and improvements to player boats and boat building this month. I want to a highlight a few of the more common complaints that have been addressed here in this section.Boat building blocks can now be rotated and demolished at any time in edit mode - they are no longer subject to the usual 5 minute timer.The |
| NAVAL UPDATE | 2026-02-05 | PLAYER MADE BOATSPlayer-made boats are here, providing a new way to explore the seas, including the Deep Sea!Place the new Boat Building Station deployable in the water and get building with your shipmates! Use the new Boat Building Plan to construct your dream boat, utilising a new set of boat-specific building blocks.Add a steering wheel, anchor, sails, engines, planks, ramps and cannons to complete your vessel and head off into the Deep Sea!Careful consideration and placement of your engines and sails is important if you want a seaworthy ship, as they will affect its handling and speed. Sails and engines can both be reversed using the radi |
| COMMUNITY UPDATE 268 | 2026-01-22 | INCOMING NAVAL UPDATE - STAGINGIn the event you've been living under a rock the Naval Update is coming with the February wipe!We're encouraging anyone with the extra time and passion for its success to go play a bit of the staging branch (beta) between now and then. Your feedback is valuable to us and you can submit that feedback using the F7 reporting system built into the game!To access Staging, simply download it from your Steam library!RUSTMAS BASE DECORATION WINNERSOver Christmas break we ran a Rustmas Base Decoration contest where players have a chance to win a bunch of cosmetic skin bundles.Happy to present our two winners!First place |
| SURVIVING 12 YEARS | 2026-01-01 | 12 YEARSServers are now wiped and Santa is packing up and clearing out the bodies, but we hope you enjoyed the Holiday Season. We're getting back to work after a couple of weeks off, which is why this blog is lighter than usual, but we're looking forward to the journey ahead in 2026!Last month, we celebrated Rust's 12th anniversary, marking an incredible journey. The game continues to experience year-over-year growth, which is quite remarkable for being 12 years old. Rust is now bigger than ever, and it's only going to get, much bigger this year. This year, Rust saw:Highest ever peak player count of 259,646 on Steam in 2025 Over 450,000,000 G |
| Final Round of Voting - Rust in the Steam Awards | 2025-12-22 | We're through to the final round! But in case you're new here, over the years, Rust has undergone some huge changes - including graphic, physics, and engine updates and rebuilds, all because we’ve wanted to make Rust what it is, and what it could be. We're guided by the community, and agile enough to deliver or pivot when we need to, month after month. And this year - Rust's 12th year - we've added a new biome, new animals, new vehicles, weapons, and so much more. As well as third party collabs, drops on Kick, more events on Twitch, raising lots of money for Charity, and doing so much more! To be a finalist is an achievement in itself, but we |
| SEASONS BEATINGS | 2025-12-18 | HAPPY HOLIDAYSFrom everyone at Facepunch, we'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! The Christmas Event is once again live!If you're new to the island, here's what you can expect: As you play, you will start to hear the distinct sound of jingle bells. As soon as you do, leave the warm comfort of your base and start looking for your gifts!Two gifts are spawned per player, in a radius of about 40m from you.Run up and bash open your present to receive your Christmas gift.They come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. But if you have enough small presents stashed, you can 'trade up' to a medium or large gift.The contents |
| Vote for Rust! The Steam Awards are now live! | 2025-11-24 | It's that time of year again... The Steam Awards are here and the 'Labor of Love' award perfectly describes our past year as we soon hit twelve years of development! Day in and day out, our teams are grinding around the clock (literally on every continent) to keep the survival chaos alive. We’re always here, keeping the game fresh, and our dedication shows - every month, without fail, we drop new content, new meta, awesome Twitch (and now KICK) drops, competitive events, seasonal events, and more cool surprises! We’re constantly keeping the community in the loop with regular updates on what’s going down in-game and behind the scenes. Updated |
| PIVOT OR DIE | 2025-11-06 | PROGRESSION CHANGESContinuing from last month’s controversial Meta Shift changes and our push to make meaningful experimental changes to Rust’s progression, this month we’re taking things a step further.By making progression easier! Wait, what? Bear with me.One of the main issues with Rust progression is that the majority of servers don’t Blueprint wipe, including our Facepunch servers. When you join a freshly map-wiped server but already have everything unlocked, you’re effectively skipping the entire early and mid-game. You craft late-tier items immediately, bypassing all the gear and choices before it, which completely breaks the sense of |
| WARHAMMER 40,000 X RUST DLC PACK | 2025-10-23 | THE DEATH KORPS OF KRIEG - DLC SKINSThe infamous Death Korps of Krieg march into Rust, bringing their grim, war-forged resolve to the island.This pack delivers battle-scarred war gear, inspired by one of Warhammer 40,000’s most fearless regiments.Gear up and march across the island clad in their signature gas-masked Hazmat suit. Shoulder your Death Korps of Krieg Backpack, designed with the rugged practicality of Astra Militarum kit. Unleash the roar of the Death Korps Chainsword and the thunder of the Krieg Shotgun, while the Death Korps Storage Containers transform your base into a fortified stronghold. The Rust x Warhammer 40,000 pack, onl |
| META SHIFT | 2025-10-02 | BLUEPRINT FRAGMENTSThe current progression meta has grown stale, moving too fast and becoming too easy over the years, with scrap inflation and scrap being everywhere. We don't believe this has been overwhelmingly negative, but it has detracted from world PvP, especially in and around monuments, and we want to experiment more with progression. This is experimental step 1:We’re introducing a new layer of progression to the Workbench system. The aim is simple: get players back out of their bases, contesting monuments, slow down progression and clashing over territory.Workbench level 1 remains unchanged, but Level 2 and Level 3 now require bluep |
| COMMUNITY UPDATE 267 | 2025-09-25 | IN CASE YOU MISSED ITRust Mobile is coming!Facepunch has teamed up with Level Infinite to bring you Rust, Anytime, Everywhere.The closed beta begins early November. You can sign up for testing here.FAQs for the beta can be found here.HAZZY & A BOLTY - MUSIC VIDEOIf you thought fishing village music was a toe-tapper, you're in for a treat.B. Dolan in production with James "1030" Houston put together this banger filmed on a live server!all ur base belong to meKINGDOMS 3 - TWITCH DROPSTune in now for the Kingdoms 3 RP event all across Twitch! Drops go till midnight PT on the 30th!Be sure to link your accounts in order to claim your drops! https: |
| MAINTENANCE | 2025-09-04 | MAINTENANCEThis month’s update is a little lighter than recent, focused on tackling a number of long-standing bugs and improvements. We’ve been working through community feedback to smooth out some of the more persistent issues and make everyday gameplay feel that bit better. Normally, if bugs persist for several years, there’s usually a good reason for that, whether it’s being difficult to reproduce or requiring a lot of work to resolve.Looking ahead to November, we’re lining up some strong meta and balance changes. If you’ve got suggestions, don’t hesitate to share them with us across our socials, including Discord, we’re always keeping an |
| HARDER CORE | 2025-08-07 | HARDCORE REFRESHHardcore mode is making a comeback this month, bringing with it some community requested changes and a few new tweaks we've been planning for a while.Our goal with game modes, such as Primitive and Hardcore, is to offer a fresh way to experience Rust, see how players respond, and try out different ideas. We don’t expect them to stay popular for long, usually just a couple of months. They’re not a major development focus or time sink, as most of the team is working on bigger features behind the scenes.We look forward to seeing your feedback. These game modes help guide our decision-making for the core Rust experience, so your i |
| COMMUNITY UPDATE 266 | 2025-07-24 | GLOBAL WARFARE IS BACK!FancyOrb's Global Warfare 3 starts right now on Twitch! All your favorite creators, big and small, will have Twitch Drops enabled if they're streaming Rust during the event! There will be one store item up where proceeds will go directly to Hope for the Day mental health charity. Please be aware this item will be account-bound once purchased.If you would like to take part in the charity drive you can check out their Tiltify page!Be sure to get synced at https://twitch.facepunch.com/connect to claim your skins!Global Warfare (Trout's Version)RUST PAINTING TIMELAPSEYou know we love a good art timelapse!Check out this incr |
| FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS | 2025-07-03 | RUST 2025: MID-YEAR RECAP & SNEAK PEEKPARTY SYSTEMAs part of one of our long term goals of reducing friction for new players, we bring the party system to make it easier to connect to a server as your friends!To invite friends to a party:Open the friends menu (bottom right of the main menu)Right click on a friendClick "Invite To Party"Wait for them to accept the inviteOnce all your friends have joined your party the party leader can connect to a server. This will cause all party members to connect to the same server.There is also an in-game advantage to joining a server as a party. When you first spawn on the server your party members will sp |
| NERFED, BUFFED, BALANCED? | 2025-06-05 | JUNGLE POLISHOne of the loudest bits of feedback we heard after last month's Jungle update: “I can’t find anything!” Fair. The jungle was a bit too good at being a jungle.Wild hemp has been reworked with taller stalks and purple flowers, so you can actually see it against the overgrowth. (Player-grown hemp remains unchanged.)More ore nodes now spawn throughout the jungle thanks to increased rock formation density and a general boost to ore availability.Berry bushes have their own dedicated Jungle population to help keep food distribution more even across the map.Cars and bikes now spawn along jungle road sides, you’ll no longer feel stranded |
| COMMUNITY UPDATE 265 | 2025-05-29 | FANCYORB'S GLOBAL WARFARE As some of you may know, these masterpieces take some time. In case you missed it here's the absolute cinema of the Global Warfare 2 event. We draw attention to this also because Global Warfare 3 is coming this summer! Keep an eye out on FancyOrb's Socials for info and exact dates and how to sign up! RUST BATTLE MURAL PAINTING Monstera brings us another incredible painting. This time, it is a giant mural that spans across 2 walls. We present: The BattleMural https://files.facepunch.com/Errn/1b2011b1/BattleMural_MonsteraRust.png Here's the progress video. Enjoy! RUST TRAILER PARK If you haven't heard of Benjamin Plays |
| Warhammer 40,000 is coming to Rust! | 2025-05-22 | Facepunch Studios is very excited to announce a landmark collaboration in the form of a new crossover: Warhammer 40,000 is officially coming to Rust! In this alliance with Warhammer, Facepunch will bring the grimdark future of the 41st millennium to the most played survival game on Steam. Players will soon be able to equip iconic Warhammer 40,000-themed cosmetic skins to their character, in their base, and with their crafted weapons, providing a unique but also fitting take on the hazmat and more items with a Death Korps of Krieg Pack - showcasing a perfect synergy of Rust’s dark brutality, and the Krieg’s unrelenting fanatical nature and aes |
| JUNGLE UPDATE | 2025-05-01 | JUNGLE BIOME We've added the first new biome to the game since the original introduction of the procedural world generation: Jungle! https://files.facepunch.com/Alistair/122/04/2025/6J27/jungleUpdate_biome_02.jpg The jungle biome covers part of the temperate coastal (tier 0) area where new players spawn. The terrain in this biome is flatter than other biomes, has a higher river density and thicker foliage. The jungle biome features a large variety of completely new foliage. This includes new types of bushes, such as bromeliads and monstera. New undergrowth plants like arrowroot and calathea. As well as variety of new trees like trumpet trees, |