New Rust update makes gunfights much riskier, so watch that trigger finger

A new Rust update today has rolled out a heap of the fixes for some of the survival game's longest-running frustrations and foibles. Developer Facepunch Studios has been deploying some hefty overhauls in recent months, but for September it's taken a slight step back from piling in new features to steady the ship and refine on what's already there. The Rust Maintenance update is "focused on tackling a number of long-standing bugs and improvements" based on community feedback.

12 years since early access began and seven since it launched in full, Rust remains the most-played survival game on Steam, outstripping long-standing names such as Ark and Valheim while batting off new challengers such as Palworld and Once Human. A big part of that has been Facepunch's dedication to honing its experience, with all manner of additions across its monthly updates. Just this year, we've seen the medieval-inspired Primitive update, the launch of the jungle biome, and some serious combat rebalancing. But this month is about smaller, yet equally important adjustments.

Kicking things off is a big enhancement to realism and immersion. Rust loads its world in using 'grids,' and you can typically only hear things that happen in the grids you currently have registered. "This makes the world feel incredibly small and closed off," Facepunch notes, especially on servers that decrease the grid size to lower their network overhead. Now, however, gunshot sounds will be handled separately, meaning you'll hear people firing off rounds from much further away than was previously possible.

The old maximum distance for sounds was 350 meters, Facepunch explains. Now, it depends on your weapon. Pistols, the SAR, the SKS, SMGs, and shotguns reach 400 meters. The AK and LR assault rifles can be heard from 500 meters, while LMGs, the minigun, and long-distance rifles such as the bolt action and L9 will be audible at 600 meters. That not only enhances the sense of immersion, but also means you'll have to consider your decision to use stronger weapons as they'll now alert other players from further away.

That's probably the most drastic change, but there are many more smaller upgrades of note. If you have building privilege and are holding a hammer, you'll now see which bags are owned by which members of your team. Visual and audio damage indicators have been added to the minicopter, with gradually more dramatic effects including smoke plumes as its health falls. Foliage displacement now acts more smoothly, and you'll see grass and plants spring gradually back up when objects are removed from them.

Volumetric clouds, introduced in the last update, have now been made the default option. You're free to manually disable them if you wish, but Facepunch says it's intending to "completely replace the 2D clouds" in the long term. Submissions to the workshop that use the in-client skin creator will now automatically take and include screenshots to show off your design. Finally, there's a long list of bug fixes and tweaks for a variety of long-standing issues.

Among the many fixed bugs are random closed eyes on players, characters being invisible when respawning while asleep, C4 not being stackable when the RF toggle is enabled, rugs deleting deployables when you pick them up on a tugboat, and horses ragdolling on planters and dead trees. The sand dunes around the giant excavator should no longer block barricade deployment, the AK's missing 'empty mag' sound has now been correctly implemented, and improved deploy guides and physics for ceiling lights should make them behave more realistically.

The Rust Maintenance update is out now. Here are the full patch notes courtesy of Facepunch. The studio says it's "lining up some strong meta and balance changes" for October, while the Rust Naval update is scheduled to introduce modular boats in November. It's also preparing to reveal the details of its Warhammer crossover DLC "soon."

For now, you can check in with the updated Rust system requirements to see if your machine is offering you the best experience possible. If it's not, our guide to the best gaming PC will help you get the most out of your budget.

Is Rust still your survival go-to, or has another game taken its place of late? Let us know in the PCGamesN community Discord server, where you can chat with other readers and staff.