The nude murderisland of Rust [official site] has welcomed women to its bloody shores, adding a female player model in last week’s update. Yes, they too are beautiful slapheads. It’s not a choice, mind. As Rust did before with penis length and race, each player’s in-game sex is decided randomly – and permanently. Some players are not too thrilled with this, but developers Facepunch say they won’t make it optional. Part of their plan to make individual players recognisable, see.

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Every Monday, Rob Zacny gathers the raw materials of Early Access and attempts to survive against a world of crazed, screaming unfinished games. This week, he visits the ultra-popular survival game.>

As I died screaming between a wolf’s jaws, collapsing in the snow that dusts the top of the mountains while listening to it gnaw through virtual flesh, I had a realization: survival games are fun as long as they are about the threat of death.

Death itself is underwhelming: a gateway to an ever-increasing set of chores and tasks that you must repeat in order to recover your lost progress. Inevitably, the process eventually repeats, and the to-do list gets longer and less fulfilling, which sounds a little bit like hell and a little bit like a parable about the human condition. Rust [official site], the multiplayer survival game from Facepunch Studios, seems comfortable with both analogies.

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I like strange characters who largely ignore players, following their own unknowable agendas until you cause problems. Skyrim’s giants who’d rather scare you off but will eventually knock you into the clouds. The Borg in Star Trek: Elite Force who don’t even consider you a threat at first. Despairing Hollows in Dark Souls. That sort of thing. I do hope that Rust [official site] will follow through with ideas raised in the latest devblog, for NPC scientists in hazmat suits investigating this strange island of ruins and naked men chasing each other swinging rocks.

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Rust [official site] now has a microtransaction item store, through which players can buy cosmetic items direct from their creators. The idea is that modders can add and profit from the sale of their own work. Perhaps most interestingly, this is all happening through Steam itself using new ‘Item Store’ functionality.

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American media conglomerate Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG plans to show 20 live Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] events on US television next year as part of a league series after brokering a successful deal with Valve.

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Livestreaming has lead to a few interesting changes in how people play games together. Some games let Twitch viewers trigger in-game problems and shocks for the player to deal with, we play Dark Souls by committee, and, of course, some use it for cheating and griefing – whether that’s watching an opponent’s livestream in an RTS to see their side, trying to jump into matchmaking at the same time, or seeing where they are in the wide world of Chernarus to track and murder them.

Rust [official site] can have a problem with the latter, with viewers griefing streamers by joining their server and hunting them down, but this week added anonymising options to tackle that. I’m sure we’ll see more games follow suit.

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VR almost certainly needs a killer app if it’s to spread beyond monied game-fans. Facebook have probably got something up their sleeves for that there Oculus Rift, but as for the Vive, I do wonder if Garry Newman’s talk of a VR-focused follow-up to his monster-selling Garry’s Mod [official site] could be the mega-toy it needs.

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“This game’s murdering sucks” is a common complaint amongst murdergame enthusiast, but what does that even mean? Virtual murder is a system of many tiny parts, covering animations, timings, kinaesthetics, damage, balance, effects, sounds, and, you know, murder – basic murdering. Sometimes a few small changes can make all the difference.

Rust [official site] developers Facepunch have taken a look at complaints of “how badly the gunplay sucks” in their open-world survival murdersim, and come up with a few changes – big and small – that might help fix that.

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Female character models are now available in Rust [official site] (but only for server admins during the testing phase).

When the models do go fully live it won’t be as a “pick your avatar” option. Instead you’ll have a male or female avatar permanently assigned to your Steam ID. It’s the same deal with how race (or at least skin tone) is assigned in the game. Penis size also works that way but apparently that was serendipitous – the result of how skeletons are constructed for animation and the fact that one of these “bones” is the penis.

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Only in Rust s [official site] dark wasteland would you ignore the obvious practical and safety issues of wearing a lit candle on your head. Which, I suppose, is what makes Rust’s dark wasteland so appealing. Stand up straight; the last thing you want is hot wax dripping down your face.

This exercise in masochistic torture is just one of the many new additions to Rust, as detailed in the latest Devblog. These weekly blogs give each member of the development team an opportunity to show off what they ve made this week and plan their week ahead. It s like being right in the studio for their Friday meetings, but with presumably less beer.

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