RUST

RUST 2025: Year in Review

- by No Limit Llama
RUST 2025: Year in Review
Physgun Rust Server Hosting

RUST survived another year, and so did we.

Change is nothing new to RUST, but 2025 didn’t just tweak the formula. It picked it up, shook it violently, and put it back down slightly different from how anyone remembered. Systems were rewritten, assumptions were broken, and habits players had carried for years were quietly invalidated in the span of a single wipe.

As always, change arrived in RUST with baggage. Bugs. Growing pains. Balance swings. Mechanics nobody asked for and other people begged for. Some updates landed cleanly. Others… not so much. And yet, resistance or not, RUST players adapted, because that’s what surviving requires.

Time and change go hand in hand, but in RUST, time doesn’t just pass; it reshapes how the game is played. In 2025, those shifts weren’t cosmetic. They affected progression, combat, raiding, building, exploration, server rulesets, and even how safe (or unsafe) the game world itself feels. Entire playstyles were nudged forward, slowed down, or quietly retired.

In this RUST 2025: Year in Review, you’ll find our breakdown of the 50 most impactful changes introduced to RUST in 2025, compiled from thousands of hours of hands-on play, testing, patch analysis, and community observation. Each entry highlights what changed, why it mattered, and where things ultimately landed. This includes the good, the bad, and the occasionally unhinged.

This isn’t a changelog recap. It’s a snapshot of how RUST has evolved over the past year and what that evolution means for the game moving forward.

On with the shambles!

New Items Introduced to the Game

The list of newly added items for 2025 far exceeds that of any prior year in recent memory. For this reason, we are simply adding a comprehensive list of links to each item in our item database. Items such as Siege Weapons and other system-specific items will be included here and in their own section below. Items originally added as standalone skin items but later redacted will not be included.

Combat & Weapon Changes

While historically a sore subject for many, changes have been made. Whether we agree with them is up to the playerbase, but they are what they are. Players continue to wait for the default ability to set AK recoil back to what it was years ago. Maybe 2026?

Bee Grenades

New Weapons

  • M15 Semi‑Automatic Pistol (pistol type, tier 2 weapon), added initially as its own weapon in the F1 menu, later converted to just a SAP skin
  • Mini Crossbow (arrow-type 4‑shot, tier 1 weapon), brought in with the Primitive Update, is more of a niche weapon but handy in a pinch.
  • The LR-300 Space Assault Rifle, included as a standalone item for now, will likely later be downgraded from the F1 menu to skin-only status.
  • RPG Launcher, included because it is still a standalone item at the moment, will later probably be downgraded from the F1 menu to skin status only
  • Krieg Shotgun, included because it is still a standalone item at the moment, will later probably be downgraded from the F1 menu to skin status only.
  • Medieval Assault Rifle, included because it is still a standalone item at the moment, will later probably be downgraded from the F1 menu to skin status only.
  • Boomerang, the first of its kind, throwable that has a mechanism to return to the player when thrown and not impact a target while semi-stationary
  • Blow Pipe, a low-range projectile with a variety of dart types with purposes ranging from standard assault to irradiation and other status ailments
  • Shields, though not technically weapons, are used in tandem with a particular subset of weapons and tools in the back slot to mitigate and block incoming damage
  • Bee Grenades / Bee Catapult Bombs, viewed initially as more of a nuisance than a weapon, were quickly determined to be deadly to players not adequately equipped.
  • Targeting Attachment is a highly underutilized item that allows the Binocular-adjacent ping feature to be added to a weapon, with the same mechanical system.

Siege Weapons

Rust Siege Weapons

For a full write-up of the siege system, please refer to our RUST Siege Weapons Guide.

  • Catapults
    • Ammo types include boulders (scattershot), firebombs, propane explosives, and players. Longest ranged primitive raiding implement.
  • Siege Towers
    • Movable by hand or by towing with a horse, this multi-story tower is equipped with ladders and drawbridges, providing a quicker method (once in place) of traversing High Walls or other obstructions.
  • Ballistas (mountable or stationary)
    • Ammo types include pitchforks, hammerheads, incendiary rounds, or piercing rounds. Decent range, but doesn’t pack the same punch as a catapult.
    • Very effective as a base defense or roof camp tool.
  • Battering Ram
    • Low Grade Fuel powered drivable vehicle, used to batter down any structure made of Stone or a lesser material, or sheet metal doors.
    • By far the most efficient of the siege weapons, and the most used on Non-Primitive Servers.

Silencer Changes

In a significant change, the standard Silencer we’ve known and loved for years was updated to a new, non-craftable format, with a spiffy name change to Military Silencer. These are pretty rare to find if you aren’t doing end-game content, but they have their same old durability. To fill the gap, tier 1 and tier 2 varieties were added that function the same way, but break very, very quickly. They can be crafted, but you’d need quite a few around if you intended to use them other than in emergencies.

an icon of a makeshift silencer made with a soda can from the game Rust
icon of a small oilcan silencer weapon attachment from the game Rust
RUST Silencer

Gunshot Auditory Ranges

The larger the gun, the louder the bang. All ammo types fired, from all gun types, had their auditory range adjusted to be heard from much further away. These are as follows;

  • Pistol-type / SMGs: audible up to ~400 m.
  • AKs, 5.56 types: audible up to ~500 m.
  • Light Machine / Sniper guns (LMGs, bolt‑action rifles): audible up to ~600 m

It could be off in the distance, as this has been rumored to have been tweaked a few times, and these ranges are pretty hard to test.

Combat Balancing Adjustments

In an attempt to extend engagement times beyond a simple two-tap scenario, some of the following adjustments were tooled with;

Damage:

  • SARs and SAPs had their damage slightly reduced.
  • SMGs were designed to perform better at close range.

Recoil:

  • AK and LR recoil patterns were slightly adjusted to reduce bullet spread, but long bursts still penalize accuracy more than short ones.
  • SAR recoil increased.

Armor Inserts

While we’ll hit the basics here, we have a fully fleshed-out Armor and Weapon Inserts guide. Assuming you’ve gone ahead and familiarized yourself a bit with the new crafting teas and how that whole process can create gear with Armor Slots, we’ll touch on each Insert type.

  • Asbestos Armor Insert – game-breaking stackable insert that provides explosion protection when used. Yes, this means it is possible, with enough of these inserted, to survive grenades, HV, or regular Rocket fire. Huge for online raid offense/defense.
  • Lead Armor Insert – quantitative radiation protection stacking tool, good if you’d like to do Military Tunnels without a Hazmat Suit.
  • Metal Armor Insert – current gold standard for PVP, adds direct damage reduction per piece, located specifically to the portion of the body that the armor covers.
  • Wooden Armor Insert – like the Metal insert, but weaker; adds direct damage reduction per piece, explicitly located on the portion of the body the armor covers.
Armor Inserts

Explosion Visuals

Not a big deal, and really probably not noticed by the average player until you see it. Explosion visuals have been overhauled, with new, more powerful concussive effects.

AI Changes

While not entirely completed by the end of 2025, many exciting alterations have been and are being made to the in-game Scientist AI. If you were lucky enough to play Staging during the later parts of November, you got to see how awesome bots on boats with profane voiceover acting could be. While this section doesn’t have much to point to, it should be added as a Wait-and-See over the coming months.

Customizable Crosshairs

Not only did we get awesome crosshair optimization within our Options menu, but we also got the ability to link our setting loadout to others via code. Color-changing was super helpful for those of us with specific hue blindness.

RUST Custom Crosshairs

Game Mode Changes

Primitive Mode

Before, it was just a concept conceived and implemented by a few server owners; prim mode strips away most modern and endgame content, leaving players in a near-permanent “primitive” state.

It removes or restricts advanced weapons, monuments, NPCs, and building tiers, forcing gameplay to revolve around simpler technology and siege-style raids. Primitive mode coincided with the release of all siege weapons, and we have in-depth coverage of both subjects.

RUST Primitive Game Mode

Hardcore Mode

Both Hardcore and Softcore modes existed before 2025. Still, each was often seen by the community as slightly rushed when pushed, at least partially unfinished, or lacking certain qualities that could make them truly successful. Listed herein are many of those concerns, which have been rectified. For the full changes as they occurred, see the two links above.

Fog of War

In place of pressing the G key and no map becoming visible while in Hardcore mode, Fog of War was incorporated into the game. Interestingly enough, for as much as the map shows, what it doesn’t show is even more critical.

Players lost the ability to focus on their current position, as would be the default in Vanilla, and placing map markers went away entirely. There is no underground rail network map to speak of. Of course, they added the Compass to mitigate this loss partially.

Player Respawns

A simple 15-minute Sleeping Bag respawn timer and a 10-minute Bed respawn timer were adjusted by default. Camper vans are treated as Beds. Additionally, players who haven’t otherwise restricted other players from assigning them beds or bags will have their final 15th bag slot reserved to prevent abuse. Didn’t sound like much until you died while defending (or propagating) a raid.

Crafting and Building

You cannot craft guns – period. Eokas, yeah, I guess those are considered firearms, but this one really changed the tone of the Hardcore mode. Couple that with double upkeep, and suddenly we’ve gone from too little to too much.

Softcore Mode

As difficult as Hardcore would become, Softcore began heading in the opposite direction.

End of the Reclamation Terminal

Instead of having to visit a safe zone to retrieve some of one’s lost loot, you instead spawn with 50% of whatever you had upon death, so long as you were outside of a building’s privilege radius.

RUST Softcore Game Mode

Bullets Hurt Less

You read that right: bullets deal 25% less damage in Softcore mode. Whether you believe this was added to foster a more forgiving combat environment or possibly act as a tool to facilitate players becoming more comfortable in combat, you’re right.

One Last Spawn

Rounding out the bigger changes in our Modes section, Sleeping Bags were changed to offer one residual, final respawn to base owners, even after they were destroyed. With this last gasp of air, the bag will permanently despawn.

World Changes

New Biome: The Jungle

On a good day, RUST presents one of the most challenging survival environments of any online game today. With winter zones that will freeze you, desert landscapes that will dehydrate you, and lush green forests that are full of wolves that travel in packs that see you from miles away, few could argue that it wasn’t hard enough already. Enter the Jungle Biome.

The Jungle really redefined what players perceived as ‘danger’. All of a sudden, a bear didn’t seem all that bad. Once we got a look at the new Wildlife introduced and the absolutely astonishing degree of immersion the zone itself came prepackaged with, the jungle quickly became off-limits to a large portion of the RUST population. Some of the more interesting features are listed below, but other firsts also popped up, such as climbable trees and swingable vines.

RUST's Jungle Biome Rock Formation

New Animals

The jungle tests your skills as a player in ways that the base game and no biome ever had before. The thick ground foliage, overwhelming ambient noise, and the sheer encapsulating effect of the growth are disorienting, even to experienced players. Without a doubt, the scariest part was the inhabitants that live in the underbrush and waters.

Panthers

The Panther, like the Tiger, is a stalking creature that attacks quickly and runs away before players can respond. While they can be knocked down by damage like the Wolf, it is harder to do so, and once they leap to attack, it is nearly impossible to avoid the damage and knockback effect.

RUST Panther

Tigers

Just as with the panther, the Tiger crouches and approaches quietly. Both cats can be heard lightly growling from a distance, but it’s quite often too late for you at this point.

RUST Tiger

Snakes

If everything else in the jungle is there to kill you directly, Snakes are there to make their job easier. Snakes aren’t very deadly directly, but instead appear quickly, strike at you with their slowing-venom, and scoot.

RUST Snake

Crocodiles

Stay out of the water. There isn’t a vehicle mode on the RUST map that can outmaneuver these monsters in a river. They are fast, ruthless, and brutal, but also delicious.

RUST Crocodile

Outbreak Scientists

Although not really new in any way other than visual, if you wandered into the jungle and started taking fire from one of these, you might be confused. Blue Scientists in fancy new orange jumpsuits.

RUST Outbreak Scientists

New Monument: The Jungle Ziggurat

It’s dense, it’s bushy, and it’s absolutely deadly. Though no direct NPC guardians were pre-installed, the monument’s location in the depths of the jungle provides sufficient protection. Check out our complete Jungle Ziggurat Guide here.

  • Jungle Ruins also made their way in, which are basically miniature monuments separate from the Ziggurat. They are just minor points of interest, marked much in the same way on the map as Waterwell Vendors. Didn’t wanna leave these little guys out.
Jungle Ziggurat Monument

Ambient Mist, Fog, and Sandstorms

Every once in a while, you’ll be out and about in the world and notice that something doesn’t look right. For the most part, this is a minor annoyance; we can’t see as far in the Arctic or the Desert, so what? But then the lines start to blur, as does everything else, and you realize that as the sun begins to fall, you aren’t able to see anything. You could definitely say these ground clouds add their own unique ambience, along with potentially deadly blind spots.

RUST's Ambient Fog

Monument Changes

Cargo & Ferry Terminal Camera Codes

You can now spy on people in more places. What a time to be a pervert. These have been added to our masterlist of CCTV codes.

Ferry Terminal Camera Codes

  • FERRYDOCK
  • FERRYPARKING
  • FERRYUTILITIES
  • FERRYLOGISTICS

Cargo Ship Cameras

  • CARGOBRIDGE
  • CARGODECK
  • CARGOSTERN
  • CARGOHOLD1
  • CARGOHOLD2
  • Vending Machines now have a small Drone Accessible icon that lights up when they’re remotely reachable.
  • Vending machines were equipped with power options to keep stored food cold, requiring electrical connections to function.
RUST Cargoship CCTV Deck Camera

Cargoless

Cargoship will no longer circumnavigate the Oil Rig monuments, instead mainly staying along the coast. This is still buggy, especially for those living on icebergs, but for the most part cut back on redundant voyage time considerably.

Monument Timers & Radiation Triggers

Monument loot respawn timers will now work similar to junkpile mechanics. NPC kills outside of the monument will no longer be a consideration in these triggers. Reset is no longer entirely contingent on keycard swipes. Looting all of the crates of a monument will trigger the reset process.

Radiation Zones were added throughout all monuments, specifically in their keycard rooms, so that players can’t camp them or otherwise prevent their reset mechanics. This feature is still a bit of a mystery to your average RUST player, resulting in quite a few unintended radiation deaths per wipe.

Diesel Gating

With the notable exception of Junkyard, Radtown, one or two spots in Dome, and Military Tunnels, all Diesel spawns were moved behind keycard puzzle doors.

RUST Gated Diesel Spawn

Loot Shakeup & Workbench Gating

Though touched on earlier, we left out the downside of the Scrap removal from workbenches. To make Level 2 and 3’s now, players must collect Basic and Advanced Fragments. Similar to Diesel, these fragments are located on keycard tables, behind locked doors, or in very high-tier crates, as well as locked crates. And just when you thought you knew where all the boxes in a monument were, they went and moved everything around at the same time.

New Green Card Rooms

Radtown, Ferry Terminal, and Dome received glow-ups this year, with their own Green Keycard puzzles added. They’re all pretty straightforward, with the one at Dome even being home to most of the aforementioned Diesel.

Missile Silo Card Change

Additional Diesel barrels and elite crates were added to this monument, as well as its Blue Keycard entry changed to Red, making it a complete endgame monument on par with Launch.

RUST Missile Silo Red Keycard Entry

Locked Crate Drop Variance

For years, the Chinook has been relatively static in its behavior, and sometimes crate drops feel somewhat stagnant, even determining where a person builds. 2025 fixed that, and now we see a considerably more random drop rate across all monuments, but mostly still Powerplant, Trainyard, and Airfield. It’s not perfect, but it’s better.

Progression Changes

Workbenches, Scrap, and Progression

I don’t want to gloss over how transformative some of these changes were, but we’re not even entirely certain they’re done yet. During the mid-year months, the Naval update was well into development, but kept getting pushed back later into the year. In lieu of normal content like items or monuments, the bigwigs at Facepunch started making sweeping, rapid changes to the way the core game worked. Instead of going through all the iterations, we’ll highlight where we are now.

Workbench Costs

It was a rough year for Scrap, with the once all-or-nothing resource being relegated to a fraction of its former importance. What was formerly a significant hurdle for the average solo on their way to a higher-tier workbench was removed entirely: the Scrap requirement.

In its place, players were forced to beg, barrow, or steal new Basic and Advanced Blueprint Fragments. As a last resort, I guess you could go out and do monuments and events to get them, but who has time for that mess? We hear Minesweeper is quite effective.

RUST Workbench Trees

Blueprint Costs

Long story short, all workbench taxation was repealed, and the cost of specific-tier blueprints was significantly reduced. Find those values in the table below.

Old Research Scrap CostNew Research Scrap Cost
500120
12560
7530
2015

The Crafting Update

This one update was sort of its own thing, inside the progression model. So much was added here that, rather than going into everything in detail, we will link to the in-depth guides we created to scratch the surface when they were released. Additional information, such as spoilage and subsystems that didn’t receive their own guide, will be included in a list.

  • Chicken Coop & Animal Husbandry
  • Advanced Cooking & the Cooking Workbench
  • Beekeeping System
  • Updates to the Mixing Table
  • Food-Specific Changes
    • Spoilage Introduced, Fridges require power, Minifridge added.
    • Collection and Capacity augmenting pies added.
    • All new meat models added.
    • Foods of assorted freshness will now stack together more easily, defaulting them when paired into stacks to have the lowest freshness that was available at the time of stacking.
    • New Food: Bread
    • New Food / Component: Wheat
    • Temperature Teas added
  • Arctic Biome dwellers rejoiced: You will no longer need to refrigerate your food, a subsystem introduced early in 2025 that was impacted by this change later.
RUST Chicken Coop

Miscellaneous Notables

Vending Machine Updates

Sleeping Bag Changes

Players were given the ability to pick up Sleeping Bags, even if they weren’t theirs, so long as they had building privilege. You can also see (with said priv) who a deployed bag belongs to, provided that person is on your team.

Phone Changes

You can name your base or cell phones now. There is a 30-character limit, but if you have friends with names longer than that, you need to reevaluate your life choices.

Ragdolling as a Bloodsport

We touched on this a bit with the horse information, but player ragdolling was introduced at the same time as catapults, for apparent reasons. Unfortunately, Player Immortality won’t be released until sometime next year, so be careful out there in the meantime.

Party Changes & Discord Integration

Built-in Discord and Steam functionality was incorporated into the RUST game menu system. Players may find friends across either platform and ‘team up’ before connecting to a server, which allows for group spawning in roughly the same area once connected. Spawns beyond the first will go back to being random.

Drones Buffed & Inventory Added

Player-crafted drones were equipped with the ability to accept and, in some cases, deploy onboard storage. This means you can now deliver things without leaving your house, even if those things are C4 and the target is your neighbors’ door. As a result, turrets and SAM sites will shoot them down.

RUST SAM SIte

Crafting Times Reduced

North of 40 assorted blueprints had their overall crafting time reduced significantly. There wasn’t any particular subsection of the spectrum impacted.

Item Ownership Added

For those of you from way back, Item Ownership of non-stackable items was brought back to the game. Anything looted, crafted, or initially picked up by a player will bear their name until destroyed.

Cosmetic Flowers

As a serious Scrap-making and base-decorating addition, cosmetic flowers were added that could be grown in pots or planter boxes. These can be sold at Barns and Ranches for major coinage.

Completely Redone Game Menu

In a major graphical overhaul, the entire game menu, options windows, connection screens, and the GUI were redone across the board to be more appealing and less laggy. The verdict is still out on the second part, but it is night-and-day better.

Holy Hemp Model

Wild hemp was given quite an increase in size and stature. While this helps out greatly in the Jungle biome for spotting Cloth, it looks absolutely ridiculous in the open plains. Hemp stands about as tall as players now.

RUST Hemp Model

Building (Plan) Change

The Building Plan is now displayed in hand. Players teeing up to put down roots can now see the Building Plan in their own hands, and the texture quality of the planned parts preview has been heavily upgraded.

Lighting Changes

Improvements continued to be made with in-game lighting, especially when looking into or out of a dim or brightly lit environment, into a separate environment that was the opposite. While not perfect, you come away feeling less blind overall with the changes incorporated. Additional lighting effects were integrated into the base electronics to enhance the ambience.

Monument Heaters

The decorative, often frustrating heaters located in places like Arctic Research Base have been given new life, or rather, given the ability to bring those about to freeze back to life. They now emit heat and comfort.

External High Wall & Gate Upgrading

For those purchasing the Gate and Wall DLCs below, you’ll be happy to learn that if you have the applicable building privilege and stone walls or gates in your inventory, you can now upgrade wood walls after they’re placed.

Large Entity Demolition

The following entities, while under appropriate building privilege and placed within the last 10 minutes, were made destructible with a Hammer.

  • Barricade types
  • Large Furnaces
  • Large pools
  • Refinery
  • Watchtower
  • Water Catchers
  • Wind Turbine

Outpost Spawning

A mission was added at Outpost, allowing players to have a permanent (through the existing wipe cycle) spawn there. Head over to CZ-721 and say hello.

RUST CZ-721 Mission Giver

Deployable Snapping

The Shift key was updated in 2025 to enable automatic entity snapping when placing items such as boxes, bags, or electrical components. Why would we need something like this, you ask? Well, for those of you building micro-bases, you can now fit 4 Large Boxes in a single square, much, much easier.

Patrol Helicopter Behavior Changes

In a shocking repeat of events, the Patrol Helicopter’s behavior was modified once again. Below are the most notable changes;

  • It will not flee if you fight it exclusively at a monument, and since it can’t damage monuments, this is really a win-win for the serious Heli enjoyer.
  • Fleeing that does happen will be towards a monument, hint, hint…
  • It cannot flee more than 1 grid.
  • If it flees, its pathing should be displayed on the map to make stalking easier.

Backpack Auto-Storage

When looting beyond your default inventory capacity, excess items will now automatically transfer into your backpack, which is a major time-saver while farming. It also works when picking things up from the ground, but frustratingly, not when directly from lootable world crates.

Storage Adapter & Auto-Sorting Boxes Change

Storage Adaptors now feature Power In and Passthrough slots, requiring 1 unit of electricity to activate sorting.

When powered, Large Boxes, Wood Storage Boxes, and Coffins connected to a Storage Adapter display a green gear icon in their UI, enabling a new automatic sorting feature. If not powered up, the gear icon will either decrease in brightness or not appear at all if it has never been powered up before.

Metal Detectors Functionality

In an odd and, quite frankly, really probably not well-known change, weapons and such lost on the battlefield not otherwise found by scavenging players will now be buried and can be found by players with Metal Detectors for up to a day after they were lost.

RUST Metal Detector

Painting Changes

A considerable amount of work went into the in-game painting interface, with features such as Auto-Saving, a complete color wheel, and a favorite colors feature so that frequent artists don’t have to work as hard. You can even paste your own hex codes in for very technical work.

Monument Event Sounds

The Oilrig Reset, Excavator Activated, and all the other large visual toasts have been replaced with a new mechanic: really loud, initially confusing sounds. Once you hear them a few times, it’s not that big of a deal, but it was hilarious watching everyone ask what the hell that noise was in our server consoles.

Area of Effect Volume Visuals

Something that probably should have been added years ago: you don’t have to guess when setting up a sprinkler or heater for your crops anymore, or when setting specific trap radii. There is now a built-in visual that will show you the range of such things so that you can stop destroying your own Sleeping Bag with a flame turret when someone raids you. Seriously, it’s 2025, why do people still do this?!

Volumetric Clouds

We’ve all looked up at the RUST sky and thought… yeah, it’s impressive, but a bit dated and predictable in appearance. Enter Volumetric Clouds. They add a level of vividness and excitement that was previously missing. Definitely a visual upgrade to the game.

RUST Volumetric Clouds

On-the-go changes

Horse Changes

  • Horses were redone entirely, with some limits lifted, like being able to go up hills or through water, but others added, like ragdolling if you go too hard, too fast, or instant death mechanics if they run out of stamina while in water and drown.
  • Horses may now be healed via Medical Syringe while in motion, granting them both health and increasing their speed for a few seconds.
  • They were given a towing mechanic for primitive siege weapons.
  • Server performance hits from horses were massively improved.
  • They even got their own player-wearable costume iteration.

Minicopter, HAB, and Scrap Transport Helicopter Flare Changes

Minicopters and Scrap Transport Helicopters now feature a Flare port, accessible by holding the E key while viewing the gas tank. Unlike the Attack Helicopter, only a single slot is available, maxing out total Flares on Vanilla servers at 5.

These may then be deployed, just as you would on the Attack Helicopter, by pressing the Right Mouse Button while in flight. Purchasing them from Bandit Camp directly should include some in storage by default.

As a tack-on bonus, like the visual effects added to the Scrap Transport Helicopter, the Minicopter will now show visible signs of damage from a distance when dropping below a health threshold of approximately 300 HP. This starts as a small engine smoke effect with some sputtering, gradually increasing to a substantial amount of smoke and more sputtering, culminating in full-on flames shooting out.

Built-in First Person Admin ESP

To address server admin concerns about situational awareness during player spectating, the following commands are now available in first-person spectating mode.

  • ESPCanvas.MaxNameplates
  • ESPCanvas.OverrideMaxDisplayDistance
  • ESPCanvas.DisableOcclusionChecks
  • ESPCanvas.ShowHealth
  • ESPCanvas.ColourCodeTeams
  • ESPCanvas.UseRandomTeamColours
  • ESPCanvas.DisplayDistanceMultiplier

F1 Menu Vehicle Tab

Because learning all the short names for vehicle types is tedious, admins can now use a new Vehicle Tab in the F1 menu to spawn items like horses, cars, soccer balls, and more directly in the game. It is broken down by vehicle type, just like the default Items menu, and is a charming addition.

RUST's F1 Menu Vehicle Tab

Premium Servers

Nothing says piss off cheaters like a $15 required Steam inventory for RUST to join a server. This is highly experimental, but early indicators suggest it is pretty effective. Premium servers have a special tag that server owners can toggle based on their preferences.

If you’re finding out about this, find the direct copy-paste dataset directly from Facepunch below;

  • Premium Servers will only be visible if your account meets the $15 threshold.
  • Premium Servers will show a Premium (and clickable) Tag to provide details about eligibility.
  • This won’t stop every cheat user, but it’s an extra layer of friction against disposable cheat accounts.
  • Server owners can opt-in by enabling the following convar: “server.premium 1”
  • The $15 threshold may change over time, and we may introduce additional factors to refine premium status.
  • Depending on Steam traffic, brand-new purchases may take up to 20 minutes to be reflected in the Premium Server authorization.
  • You can manually refresh or check your premium status by going to the server listings, clicking the premium server tag, and clicking the refresh icon.
  • If you have premium status, it’ll display on your avatar on the menu menu

Admin Invis & God Indicators

There are now in-game visual indicators for Admin staff with God mode or Invisibility enabled. These will appear to the left of the player’s hotbar, with a shield indicating God mode is enabled, and an eyeball with a strikethrough from bottom left to top right indicating that you’re invisible to other players.

RUST Admin and Invis Indicators

Recurring Wipe Schedule

All official servers will wipe blueprints on every wipe until further notice, following the big Scrap/Blueprint/Workbench shakeup. This isn’t a big deal until server owners realize that their method of ensuring these wipes would affect them, too. It’s been a few wipes now, and we’ve mostly figured out what needs to be done. We might even do a guide on how to maintain Blueprints on your server in the future.

Year of DLCs, Continued…

Instead of going into a deep dive on how in-game skins and exclusive items have gone mainstream, it might be easier for you to jump right into the marketing that went into them. They set a legit personal best this year with the number released, and we didn’t even include the miniature Seasonal Wallpaper variations released. With that, we present 2025: RUST DLC’s Gone Wilder.

Afterthoughts

Feel like something else should have made this list? Honestly, I do too… but hell, we love a good argument! Be sure to reach out through our official Discord and let us know. While this list wasn’t exhaustive, we stand by our decisions based on player impact per category, and many long days went into researching every change in the changelog.

As is becoming tradition, this will more than likely be our last post of 2025, but we look forward to continuing to serve you in 2026. Thank you for sticking with us all these years. Words can’t describe how much we appreciate you taking the time to read our ramblings!

Be good to each other, always. And Happy Holidays from the team at Corrosion Hour!

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About No Limit Llama

An aspiring woodworker and web designer. Father, husband, and Rust veteran. Llama has written op-eds and official game documents for over two decades. The earliest writings were on Asheron’s Call, followed by World of Warcraft and eventually Rust. The vast majority of his indoor time is spent running Rust servers or helping friends with their Rust-related projects. He enjoys working around the house, continuing his education when time permits, and creating new processes to simplify activities of daily living for his friends and family. He has an incredible wife, a dog, three children, and one granddaughter.

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