12:15am EST - With just 7 days before the forced blueprint and map wipe, we’ve got some exciting things on the horizon!

Our update preview stream goes live at 3pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day.

Monument puzzles

Helk and Vince continue their work on the largest upcoming shift to gameplay: Monument puzzles. With an expected debut at the update next Thursday, this shift to monuments will add an extra level of complexity to loot gathering. Instead of utilizing your parkour skills (and just pure luck) when finding that sweet swag around the map, you’ll now have to accomplish new criteria to gather that highest tier loot.

With a mix of kinetic wheels, blast doors, switches, electrical boxes, fuse boxes, and more, these new puzzles not only increase the dynamism of gathering loot, they lay the foundation of electricity for the game.

Still on a separate branch, monument puzzles will surely be a highlight for big update next week. Check back earlier in the week (once the branch is merged to staging) for a full write up on what to expect. In the mean time, here's a teaser picture Helk sent me of some of the new puzzle pieces...

Updated Diving Gear

Taylor has done an update on some of the diving suit model art. With a more refined approach to the diving tank, mask, and fins, he’s provided aquatic-seeking Newman's with a fresh look. As always, pictures speak louder than words, so here’s some eye candy:

New peeks at Bandit Town

Speaking of eye candy, Damian sent me a couple fresh shots of the newest work-in-progress monument, Bandit Town. As discussed last week, this new point of interest stands to be the antithesis of the Compound monument (or Outpost) - instead of catering to the PvE players, Bandit town will appeal to the assholes (Helks words, not mine). It may also usher in some new game dynamics such as faction ratings and other experiments.

As with many good things, we’ll have to wait to see this in the wild. Bandit town is not expected to go live with this next update. That said, I’d be surprised if it doesn’t make its way into staging sometime in June for its debut early July. As always, we’ll keep you posted - oh, and here’s those new shots from Damian.

Hapis Island improvements

Alistair just merged in his latest round of changes to our favorite non-procedural map, Hapis. Along with some new islands in the south, the Compound monument (aka Outpost) has been added near the center of the map. Although there is still some polishing needed, we can expect these changes to go live with the forced wipe next week.

Canoe and oar

A new form of water transportation is in the works. No visuals or definitive timeline in place yet, but know that another form of water transportation will be here before you know it.

Procgen native

Andre is working on some shifts to procedural map generation in anticipation of the next forced map wipe. As he told me just before, "it's all a secret for now". Stay tuned as we get closer to the wipe for more info.

AI Improvements

Pal has been doing a bunch of work on improving various elements with AI (both NPC and animal) this week. Along with starting work on NPC’s taking note of interesting throw objects such as flares, he’s started a new branch which addresses various optimizations with navmesh - the foundation of how NPC’s and animals navigate the terrain of Rust.