Yesterday marked a big milestone for Rust: most concurrent players ever - 61,260! The previous record of 58k players was set in January of 2014 - back in the days of legacy. That means, not only is this the most players ever at one time, it suprasses most people playing the new version of Rust by over 10,000!

The source of this influx of players? Steam sales, bitches! After a 50% discount at Christmas, Rust is once again half price as part of the Steam Lunar New Year sale which started February 5th and ends this Friday morning (Feb. 12th).

Edit: I want to point out these jumps are not solely due to the steam sales - spikes in players tend to be congruent with forced wipes. In addition, keep in mind this rise is also in part due to the steady updates and improvements over the past few months. Out of the top 4 games in this genre, Rust is the only one to see such an increase.

I’m thrilled to see such an influx of players and welcome all you new nakeds into the fold. By the way, if you are a brand new player and you don’t have anyone to play with, I’ve got good news for you…

Rust Players Slack

Last week, we launched a new slack community aimed at solving the lone wolf dilemma. I’m happy to report, after just a couple days, we have almost 100 of the most popular servers listed and over 300 members matchmaking.

Also, I managed to get the automatic registration working once again, so new applicants should get an invite immediately (check spam if you don’t). To find people to play with right now, click the button below and fill out the form!

This week in development

Garry is still trucking along on the leveling system, but don’t expect to see that for at least several weeks. We will likely see an update this week though, more details as we get closer to Thursday.