As of last month, developers Facepunch (headed by Garry Newman of Garry s Mod fame) declared that what was previously known as Experimental Mode is now the definitive version of Rust. It now launches by default on Steam, with an option to play on the old Legacy servers instead if you re not ready for change. Unfortunately, I don t think the game s quite ready itself.

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In early 2012, a mod for Arma II called DayZ was released. Two-and-a-half years later, its odd mixture of multiplayer, horror, and a need for players to keep themselves fed and watered, has given rise to the survival genre.

Let’s celebrate that genre.

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If it wasn’t already plainly obvious, survival games are all the rage these day(z), and zombies – thanks to DayZ’s ever-looming influence – come part and parcel with that. The War Z/Infestation: Survivor Stories hit a little too> close to home on that front, and Nether, with its possibly dubious ties to the former, also deals in apocalyptic baddie bashing, but with a slant toward the occult. Rust, meanwhile, frolicked through the gray-green fields with the shambling undead only for as long as it had> to. And now it seems EverQuest and PlanetSide developer SOE has come down with a case of the Z diseaze as well, with its “soon” to be available H1Z1 promising DayZ-style antics on a much larger scale.

When Smedley promised a game “dedicated” to longtime Star Wars Galaxies fans, I’m not sure if this is what they had in mind.

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I had died again. For the eighth time I had been murdered by a greedy neighbour. I sighed. It was time to switch servers and try it all again. Usually when you spawn on a Rust server, there are a few quiet minutes to get used to your surroundings and look around. Not on my ninth reincarnation. The very instant I popped into the world I heard a voice behind me, yelling.

Who are you!

It was more of a statement of rage than a question. Shocked, I turned and saw him. Silhouetted against the sky, a man stood atop a wrecked building, stretching a bow and pointing an arrow at me. His name was Blazing Bazing. He was completely naked.

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Rust is already a purring, slurring engine of human depravity, but there’s no denying that it’s all rather barebones at the moment. You can explore, you can build a house around other people’s houses and take them prisoner but mercifully feed them tuna every couple hours, but Garry (of Garry’s Mod fame) and co have much bigger plans for the future. At this particular moment, that means a whole slew of improvements including a new UI, farming, and an item editor modeled after the one that produces Team Fortress 2′s infamous headwear selection.

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