In an update earlier this month, Facepunch made it so every Rust player would have a race and face permanently assigned to them. The new look is locked to your Steam ID. That means that every character you create will share exactly the same randomised look.
Facepunch founder Garry Newman said it’s “just like in real life, you are who you are – you can’t change your skin colour or your face.”
The change has angered some Rust players who want the freedom to change how they look in game. Not everyone, though. One player couldn’t be happier with his blue pubes.
“Everyone now has a pseudo unique skin tone and face,” wrote Newman. “Just like in real life, you are who you are – you can’t change your skin colour or your face. It’s actually tied to your steamid.
“Right now your avatar is randomised via three things. Skin colour, head mesh and head material. We only have 2 face textures and 2 face materials, which means there’s 4 possible combinations. We will be adding more of these later on (at which point your face will probably change).
Newman admits “there’s still work to be done, so consider this just the boilerplate of an idea for now. It’s quite pleasing to see different races working together in game, and makes you realise how arbitrary race is.”
The community’s response has been mixed. There’s a number of threads on the Steam forums with players asking how they can change their race. But, over on Reddit, there’s a different response:
Other’s are hoping future updates will let you tattoo or scar your character so you can customise your look on top of the unchangeable parts of your character.
“There’s a lot of skin colours in the world,” says Garry, “and it’s really easy to appear racially insensitive when doing this. This is compounded by the fact that everyone is really used to seeing [the player model] as a white guy, so when you see him as a black guy it feels like he’s just “blacked up“. So we’re spending a lot of time trying to lessen that effect.”
What about you, have you found yourself logging in to be a white guy with green pubes? An Asian man with an orange beard and purple merkin? Would you want to change it if you had?
Click here if you need to find a player’s Steam Id.
If want a cool signature badge use Steam Profile.