After a load of fresh interest from some of the biggest names on Twitch, Rust is poised for a massive 2021. (The Rust player count has already reached a new all-time peak and is continuing to grow.) The first update of the new year is a relatively small one, but it sets the stage for what to expect in the next handful of months.
First off, be aware – you’re losing your blueprints. The devs are “force-wiping blueprints across all Rust servers” as a result of the recent tech tree system, to ensure everyone’s once again playing on a level field. This is the first such wipe in years, and the devs say it’ll be a “long, long while” before it happens again.
Rust is getting Twitch Drops now, too. Watching any Rust stream will get you three rewards: a sofa after two hours, an industrial door after four hours, and a hobo barrel after eight hours. Additionally, nine streamers now have personalised in-game items you can get by watching four hours of their respective streams: auronplay, jacksepticeye, lilypichu, ludwig, Myth, pokimane, shroud, Sykkuno, and xQc. You can see those details on the official site.
Rust has just reached 200,000 concurrent players as I write this, and the devs want to make room for all those new faces. 13 new servers are launching today, and the devs are ready to bring up more as the need arises.
This is a much smaller update than the one that brought us tech trees, but Rust’s place at the lead of the pack of survival games shows no signs of dissipating.