12:00am EST - The team is charging ahead with two big things on the horizon: the Christmas Update dropping next week and continued development on the much-anticipated Naval Update set for February. Oh—and let’s not forget, today’s a special one… Happy 12th Birthday, Rust!

Happy 12th Birthday, Rust!

Twelve years ago today, Rust was born—and what a journey it’s been. Huge thanks to the entire team at Facepunch for continuing to grow and evolve the game into what it is today. While the big Naval Update has been pushed to February, it looks like this year’s in-game birthday celebration may be bundled in with the Christmas Update next week. We’ll keep an eye on it and let you know when the festivities go live.

Christmas Update Next Week!

The annual Rust Xmas event is right around the corner, with a patch scheduled for next week to kick things off. As always, you can expect the return of festive favorites—like presents, stocking spawns, and the jolly air drop event—but it looks like we’re also in for some new treats this year. One highlight to watch for: a new DLC featuring Ice Sculptures, likely bringing some frosty new decor options to your base. Stay tuned for the full rundown once the update drops.

Naval Update Progress

Work continues on the Naval Update, now targeting a February release. This week’s changes were mostly behind-the-scenes improvements focused on optimization, bug fixes, and laying the groundwork for upcoming features. Performance tweaks were made to boat audio, AI handling, and environment systems, while some deep sea building options were expanded. AI behavior and reputation systems also saw some polish, and several small bugs tied to rendering and object interactions were addressed. All in all, it’s another step forward in prepping the Naval content for prime time.

Fixes

The team is working on a ton of fixes, here is a summary:

Notification indicator fixes
General settings menu fixes
Buoyancy-related optimizations
Terrain renderer fixes
Trigger-parent delayed-exit optimization
Hot-air balloon LOD distance adjustments
Boat performance fixes (non-naval)
Build cache redirect fixes
Cannon behavior fixes
Card game atlas fixes
Cargo ship camera rotation fix
Console auto-completion improvements
Icon renderer texture streaming fix
Inflated normal-map bias adjustments
Mountables: removed unnecessary physics sync
Network cache stale-group cleanup
Party hat world model fix
Planner viewmodel clipping fix
Junkpile empty-check randomization fix
Reduced auto-turret networking load
Static-field reset fix in grid constructor
Corner-snapping null-reference fix
Shader updates for decal map support

Other stuff

Facepunch has also been cranking on a bunch of other various things. Here’s a summary:

Artist Pack DLC additions and polish (paintball guns!)
Mountable player sync bypass work for AI interactions
Proc pop debugging and profiling improvements
Weapon refresh pass for the M92
Ghost-ship / scientist boat work-queue updates (AI behavior changes)
Ballista gun networking reduction (lower aim-packet frequency)
Space Station DLC store page setup
Relationship-system optimizations for AI
New butcher-knife sound effects
Console auto-completion improvements (part feature, part fix)
Reduced auto-turret networking load (optimization)
Space Station weapon skin work (new content)
Shader updates for decal + additional map support (content/tooling improvement)