Not for the feint-hearted, the world of Rust is a cruel, savage place, with each server populated by hundreds of other players and wildlife. Rust is one of the best survival games around, throwing you into the wilderness stark-naked with only a rock for company, and letting you off your leash to eat, gather resources, and - when the need inevitably arises - killing their fellow players; in other words, just survive. In Rust, every night you stay alive feels like an achievement, and each incremental little bit of progress you make - whether it's crafting your first bow-and-arrow, your first shack or your first storage crate so you can pick up your materials should you die - takes you a step closer to getting a precious foothold in the world. It can all quickly fall apart when you die though, because you lose all the things you had on your person at the time, which makes for a tense, frustrating, but always exciting experience. The beauty of Rust is that it's something of a blank canvas, and is defined almost entirely by your relations with other players on the server. Do you try to team up with others to try and create a settlement and safe haven for players, do you form a party of bandits, dedicated to shooting-on-sight any lone wanderers who look vulnerable, or do you try and establish a dictatorship over the server, using your power to extort those weaker than you? There are enough emergent social dynamics here to for an anthropological study. Rust is still technically in Early Access, but Mac gamers can pick it up on Steam and play it cross-platform with the PC crowd.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
