12:00am EST - The Rust Halloween event starts on Monday, October 23rd, with a mandatory patch at expected at 2pm EST (7pm BST).

Our update preview stream goes live at 1pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day.

Charitable Rust 2023: Great Success!

Our yearly charity event, Charitable Rust, took place last weekend. I’m thrilled to say it was a huge success, raising a bunch of funds for charity: water! There is a bit more time left to give though, today is the final day the skins are on the store, so go pick up these exclusive skins, the proceeds of which go towards this great cause! For more information on this years event, check out my post from earlier this week.

Halloween event overview

Similar to other holiday events in Rust, the 2023 Halloween Event features a variety of seasonal items, loot, events in the game, the Frankenstein’s pets, and the portals from last year! This goes live via a mandatory patch Monday, October 23rd at 2pm EST, it’ll be active on servers till the next forced wipe on November 2nd.

Portals

For the second year, portals will now spawn randomly around the map and last a period of time before they collapse. When you walk though a portal, you’re teleported to a small dungeon - which is basically a small cave system. These dungeons are either procedural or there are at least over 15 variants. In the dungeon you’ll find loot and scarecrow NPC’s to kill. You can exit the dungeon by passing back through the portal you came through.

Here are some examples of we found in dungeons:

5 NPC Scarecrows - 1 Normal Crate and 1 Military Crate
3 NPC Scarecrows - 2 Military Crates
4 NPC Scarecrows - 1 Normal Crate and 1 Military Crate
5 NPC Scarecrows - 3 Normal Crates
2 NPC Scarecrows - 1 Normal Crate and 3 Military Crates

Frankenstein pets

First appearing the other year, Frankenstein pets make a comeback for the duration of the event.

Overview
Frankenstein pets are assembled from 3 parts and put together on the new Frankenstein table. You can find Frankenstein parts in the Mummy and Scarecrow NPC’s around the map. There are 3 types of Frankenstein: light, medium, and heavy. Once you have any 3 parts, you can combine them on a Frankenstein table to bring your pet to life. You can then give your pet different directives.

Frankenstein table
A default blueprint, the Frankenstein table is a base requirement for building your pet. At 200 metal frags, it’s pretty easy to craft. Simply craft it, place it, then add the Frankenstein parts. Once the parts are added, hold ‘e’ on the table and select ‘Wake Frankenstein’.

Blueprint
Default

Crafting
200 metal frags

Workbench
Level 1 required

Craft time
15 seconds

Types of Frankenstein
As mentioned above, there are 3 types of Frankenstein pets: light, medium, and heavy. They each have their own attributes. For example, the light Frankenstein moves fast but has less health. The heavy has more health but moves slower.

There are 3 parts for each type. All parts are interchangeable (meaning you can have light legs, a medium torso, and a heavy head).

Controlling your pet
A new radial menu has been added for when you hold ‘p’ while looking at a pet (p for pet, get it?). This menu allows you to select what you’d like your pet to do. Here is a summary of each command:

Idle
Pet does nothing

Follow
Pet will follow you around

Guard
Pet will attack anything that attacks you

Assist
Pet will attack anything you attack

Move
Pet will move to where you are looking

Destroy
Pet is instantly killed

Combat
Pet will attack anything you attack, It will attack anything that attacks you, It will defend itself if attacked

Other things of note

Frankenstein parts are found on mummies / scarecrows around the map
You can only have one pet at a time
Pets will only travel a max of 100m
The Frankenstein table doesn't require power
You can see your pets health on bottom right
Pets placement is shown on map

Dracula Mask

Fresh in game, a reskin of the metal face mask: the Dracula Mask. This will likely be available for purchase on the item store once the update is live.

Dracula Cape

Also new in game, a Dracula Cape! This will likely be available for purchase on the item store once the update hits.

Carvable pumpkins

Also making a comeback previous years Halloween event, carvable pumpkins available. They are pretty straightforward - simply paint on them like a sign, add some wood, and light them up!

Like last year, they will likely be found on the item store.

Spooky Scarecrows and Mummies

The roaming, murdering NPC’s from previous Halloweens are back! This year Scarecrows and Mummies wander the map, looking for fresh Newmans to feast upon. They’ll run after you with a Chainsaw or Sickle and try to kill you if they see you, so watch out!

Details

HP
200

How many on map?
~ 40 on a default map

Weapons used
Chainsaw
Sickle
Beancans
Machetes

Example loot dropped
Fuse
Guitar
Metal Blades (2x)
Flashing Light
Pitchfork
Corn
Sickle
Rope
SAR Body
F1 Grenades (3x)

Trick or Treat event

Similar to the Egg hunt from the Easter event, Trick or Treating is back! About once every other in game day you’ll see a countdown and notice pops up saying “Trick or Treat Starts in: 14 seconds”.

Once it starts, Halloween Candy will spawn around each player. Race to pick up as much as you can within 3 minutes.

Now what do you do with all this candy? Well, like any normal trick-or-treater, you can just shove it all in your gullet till your stomach can’t take any more. You can also upgrade it to higher tiers of candy (loot). See below for more details on each tier.

Oh, and the top three people to get the most candy, get prizes…

Prizes

1st

3 Medium Loot Bags

2nd

1 Medium Loot Bag

3rd

1 Small Loot Bag

Halloween Loot Upgrades

Lowest common denominator on the treat loot ladder, Halloween Candy - which stacks to 10 - can be eaten (healing +1, calories +25) or upgraded to a Small Loot Bag (10 to upgrade).

From there, you can continue to upgrade. Here’s a low down of each loot bag type and some loot examples you can find:

Small Loot Bag

Stacks to
10

Sample Loot
4 Chocolate Bars
Pumpkin bucket
Compound bow +10 arrows ~48 frags
Hunting bow + 5 arrows Scarecrow Wrap

Upgrade to Medium
10

Medium Loot Bag

Stacks to
10

Sample Loot
2.5k stones
Revolver + 20 ammo
Double Barrel + 5 buck shot Chainsaw + 22 low grade Spider Webs
Graveyard fence

Upgrade to Large
10

Large Loot Bag

Stacks to
10

Sample Loot
MP5A4 + 30 ammo
M249 + 50 ammo
LR300 + 20 ammo
M39 + 50 ammo
5 IC + 3 HV Rockets
Grenade Launcher

Upgrade
N/A

Pumpkin Bucket

This handy bucket found in Small Loot Bags allows you to pick up candy quicker during the Trick or Treat event using left click. You can also use right click to throw candy at people - it does about 20hp damage.

Scarecrow Wrap

The Scarecrow Wrap - found in Small Loot Bags - will give you extra candy vision when applied (basically allows you to see the candy from farther away).

Pickup-able resources

You’ll notice a change to the resources you can pick up off the ground with this update. Wood, stone, and ore pickups are now spooky looking! You can even pick up bones!

Other development news

We’ll be back next Thursday with a full rundown of what you can expect in the November update. In the meantime, here are some highlights of what’s been going on in development:

Fixed team invite from server to clientside to improve reliability
Water camera fixes
More work on Frontier building skin
Continued progress on the Base Decor DLC
Rail link network progress, additional second entrance variant added
Tutorial Island progress
More work on backpacks
Player-Rig Updates