Rust’s next force wipe update caters to clans, alarming solos

The first Thursday of the month marks the most exciting time for Rust players, as servers are wiped, allowing players to go back to basics and start from scratch once again. As they boot up the game, Rust players can prepare themselves to discover the map that they will call home for the next few weeks. Waking up on the beach is the start of an adrenaline-fueled one-month journey for many. However, the latest update has raised concerns regarding how it will affect solo players.

An update usually rolls out before the wipe, when Facepunch adds new content. Throughout the month, the developers work on these features in the Staging Branch, which is a separate version of Rust that allows players to get early access to beta content in order to provide feedback and help perfect features before release.

For the past week, Facepunch has been using the Staging Branch to test major features scheduled to come to the main monuments in Rust in August. Even though what’s available on the Staging Branch is subject to change, testers were able to get a pretty good idea of what’s being added this Thursday. Many of them seem to be concerned about how it will affect solo players.

Players will have to collect a new item called Heavy Fuse to get the Power Plant to generate electricity. Doing this enables several features across the map, such as:

• Obtain power from roadside electrical poles
• Use water-pumping pipes on the roadside
• Start Satellite Crash event
• Increase airdrop rate at Airfield
• Summon CH47 to Airfield
• Use Oil Rig switch that toggles oil pump at Dome
• Extract crude oil pump at Dome
• Use car lift at Oxum’s Gas Station
• Enables freezer at the Supermarket
• Increases recycler efficiency

These changes, while fun and realistic, make getting the Power Plant up and running almost necessary, making the monument now more important than ever. It is one of the reasons why fans fear that clans will wall it off and roof the camp in order to prevent anyone from getting close to it and taking advantage of its electricity.

On top of this, Rust is a brutal game, and many players will shoot on sight. It can be difficult to safely move from one place to another, particularly when you’re playing solo and have no one to watch your back. Therefore, it may be hard to reach a monument on time before the Heavy Fuses powering up the plant run out, especially if players are trying to get the Dome oil pump going after going to at least one Oil Rig.

Even if solo players stick to solo-exclusive servers, finishing these new puzzles will be complicated. For clans, it’ll be much easier, as they can have one player man the Power Plant, send another to each Oil Rig, and have another player extract the crude oil. They won’t have to run around the map trying to get it done quickly or be afraid of getting shot in the back.

Rust players have expressed their concerns regarding the update throughout the week on platforms such as Reddit and X. On a recent Reddit thread about this matter, user sarattenasai commented on how gameplay has been difficult as a solo player and how it snowballs. It becomes increasingly harder to progress, as more powerful teams establish themselves and take over monuments. At some point, solos just feel stuck with primitive items because they can’t get their hands on a better workbench and obtain decent weapons fast enough. Many solos end up getting raided by a large group before they’re able to build a Tier 2 Workbench.

“People complain because recent updates shifted the balance so far to clans that it’s actually just stupid,” added user Lefal_Impression_126. User Good-Discussion-9238 sarcastically chimed in with “breaking news: company targets wider audience.” However, user aleks9797 responded with “It’s hard to accept. Because the game didn’t start with the zergs, the game started with solos and duos. Through the support of these people, the game was able to grow and eventually the late adopters (zerg players) start playing and the game starts to revolve around them.” Still, other players had different opinions, so the topic seems to be one that will keep being debated.

These features are still subject to change, but gamers will be able to check out the final changes for themselves on Thursday. The Rust force wipe begins on Thursday, Aug. 6, at 2 PM ET.