The survival game Rust has passed the one million sales mark, as was tweeted by Facepunch Studios’ founder Gary Newman.
The small, England-based indie studio of 11 people (currently) is also known for developing Garry’s Mod , from which its commercial success catapulted the small group into forming a limited company back in 2006.
Despite the title being in Steam’s Early Access, Rust has maintained itself in the Top Sellers list for some time now. The mechanics of Rust revolve around surviving by gathering resources, building shelters, crafting items, avoiding being mauled by wolves, etc. Curiously, Rust has a unique feature that I’ve not seen in a survival game before: built-in voice chat. With this feature you can speak in-game without having to be in a call with a group of people, and instead just speak.
At the time of the tweet, Rust has sold a lifetime total of 1,001,570 units. In the two months since the title appeared on Steam back in early December, Rust has managed to sell just over a million units to players, despite it being an early build. So far the game doesn’t seem to be going in a particular direction. It seems that it is the players who are changing the in-game world around them from what they have managed to resource, and the game is being adapted along with the playerbase, which is quite an interesting concept. Creating an empty world filled with resources and only providing the very most basic tools to the players, and then letting them loose, and then build the game around what the players do.
Rust is currently available on Steam’s Early Access for £14.99, or your regional equivalent. I must emphasis though: Rust is still in a very early state, it’s still in Alpha. There are plenty of games for around Rust’s pricetag that are finished and may or may not be good. Unless you’re willing to give near-constant feedback based on your experience to the devs during Rust’s development and actively troubleshoot problems and such the like (because that’s what testers do, usually), then perhaps try looking for another game. That is unless, of course, you’re hellbent on buying the game anyway, in which case just go for it then! Have a blast!