Rust – PvP-focused survival gets hardcore mode

The survival PvP title Rust is supposed to go back to its beginnings with a new mode.
The developers have now announced that a hardcore mode is planned for the game.

The hardcore mode is coming!

Developer Alistair wrote on Twitter that there were probably some voices from the community that consider Rust to be too easy a game.
Facepunch reacts to this with the announcement of a hardcore mode.

This is currently in development and will soon be integrated into the game, but not in the upcoming August update.

What’s in the hardcore mode?

Facepunch hasn’t revealed anything specific about the content yet, but Alistair does reveal two general things.
The new mode will be completely separate from the current game and will not affect it in any way.

He also announced that the mode will not just be the same game with a different recoil behavior for the firearms.
Context: Since the changes of the Combat Update in June 2022, the innovations in terms of firearm recoil have been controversially discussed by the community.

Time for speculation

Since the announcement, players and fans of Rust have naturally been puzzling over what exactly could be behind the hardcore mode.

It could be an artificial slowdown of the game’s progress to make it more difficult and longer. This way you could find less scrap and need more – or there could even be a return to the old blueprint system instead of the research tree.

Another possibility would be a greater impact of survival aspects – that is, temperature changes, hunger, thirst, and also the effect of injury and health on the character.
So things like vision, hearing, or speed could change depending on your condition – or you might just need to take care of yourself more often.

Completely new approaches, such as the omission of popular PvP items like healing injectors, barricades or certain weapons would also be interesting.

More info maybe already next week?

As you can see, there are theoretically many possibilities and approaches how a hardcore mode could be implemented in Rust. In the end, we have to wait for Facepunch to reveal more about it.

Maybe it will happen in the next week – and besides the August update, first information will be published.

We will keep you up to date, of course!