12:00am EST - As we pass the halfway point for Rust development this month the team continues cranking on various environmental changes, AI work, a refresh of the hardcore game mode, and more!

Environmental Changes

The environment and weather in Rust have gotten a big facelift on staging. With the latest updates to volumetric clouds, spatial fog, post-processing color grading, and weather systems all merged in, the game’s atmosphere feels noticeably different. These improvements bring a fresh mood to many areas of the map, making everything look that much more immersive and visually striking.

More AI Scientist Work

The overhaul of scientist NPC AI is still rolling forward. This week, there’s been progress on giving heavy scientists their own custom behavior, making them walk and lay down suppressive fire while regular scientists handle flanks and pushes. Scientists in general now walk instead of jog, changing up how they move in fights. Over on the large oil rig, new scientists have been added along with defined zones they’ll operate in, supported by new debugging and editing tools to fine-tune these areas. There’s also been more playtesting of shotgun scientist behavior, aiming for more hit-and-run tactics, sneaking, and ambush setups.

Menu Overhaul

A full revamp of the ESC menu has just landed on staging, giving players a fresh and modernized way to interact with game settings, options, and more. This isn’t just a reskin — it’s a complete overhaul of the existing system, aiming to streamline navigation, improve clarity, and make common tasks quicker and easier to access.

While visuals may continue to be polished, the new layout already feels like a big step forward. Expect reorganized tabs, cleaner UI, and a more intuitive flow across the board. Whether you’re adjusting settings, managing controls, or just trying to leave the game, the new ESC menu is shaping up to be a much smoother experience all around.

Hardcore Refresh

The hardcore gamemode is getting more love this week with several new tweaks and features. A compass has now been added to help with navigation, and there’s also a fog of war system coming in to limit what parts of the map players can see until they explore. On top of that, a fresh setup allows the mode to multiply the crafting cost of items based on loot tags. Right now it’s focused on firearm ammo, with a new FirearmAmmunition tag applying a hefty default multiplier of x10 to crafting costs for pistol and rifle ammo types (though all still work-in-progress and adjustable via convars). Meanwhile, AI updates include fixes to stop heavy scientists from awkwardly walking into players, proper icons and localization for new scientist types, and the addition of a prototype shotgun scientist with more aggressive, ambush-style behavior.

Fixes

There’s also a bunch of miscellaneous fixes in the works. Here is a summary:

Prevent deployables placed on top of rugs on tugboats from parenting to the rug. Ensure they parent to the boat instead
Fix issues canceling loading into servers
Fix scene lists duplicate entries in AssetSceneManifest at runtime
Fix errors unloading scenes in editor because no asset scenes are loaded (can't unload last scene)
Fixed fishing village red door to be always openable

Other Stuff

More work on the Pilot DLC (hazmat suit progress this week)
More work on the new ESC menu
More progress on the Naval Update
Initial work on a new Quality Assurance (QA) Island for testing
Updated medical syringe animation
Timer can now be added to mute command