Rust kills off zombie population

With Rust having grown into a game about surviving the natural world and its inhabitants, Facepunch Studios has acknowledged that zombies have outlived their usefulness and removed them from the game entirely.

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A funny thing happened once the zombie survival game Rust began its alpha. Players began emphasizing the survival aspect of the game and grew more concerned with the machinations of their fellow man than they did hiding from the undead. With Rust having morphed into a different kind of survival experience, Facepunch Studios has ultimately decided to kill off zombies, once and for all, in the recent February 6 update.

"Yep. We did it. We decided we couldn't hold off any longer," Facepunch's Maurino Berry said on the Rust blog (via Kotaku). "The longer we keep zombies in – the more complaints we'd get about removing them. We are forcing ourselves to deal with it. We are no longer a zombie survival game! They've been replaced with red bears and wolves. You hate them. We know. They're just plugging a gap for now. All will be revvvealed."

It should be noted that the last word in that quote is no typo. Read into the extra v's what you will.

With wildlife now filling the zombie void, Rust's latest update has improved their behavior. Animals will now react to gunshots and also be wary of other, more hostile wildlife.

Rust's alpha is available now through Steam Early Access.

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Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 7, 2014 3:45 PM

    Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Rust kills off zombie population.

    With Rust having grown into a game about surviving the natural world and its inhabitants, Facepunch Studios has acknowledged that zombies have outlived their usefulness and removed them from the game entirely.

    • reply
      February 7, 2014 3:51 PM

      Vampires?

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        February 7, 2014 3:53 PM

        The dark zombies do have a resemblance to vampires.

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      February 7, 2014 4:02 PM

      Veni, vidi, vici?

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        February 7, 2014 7:17 PM

        Caesar and the Roman legions then?

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      February 7, 2014 6:02 PM

      I miss the zombies, I think they could have just made them packs of cannibals instead of removing them all together because of Day z :/

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      February 7, 2014 8:02 PM

      [deleted]

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        February 7, 2014 8:16 PM

        DayZ is Rust with Zombies

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        February 7, 2014 9:23 PM

        Completely different games. Rust is about survival and base building. You make structures in the game and try to protect your shit and get more badass shit. DayZ is like a slowed down death match played on a giant map with a few AI.

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          February 7, 2014 9:56 PM

          I would say Day Z is way, way more focused on survival than Rust, and much more hardcore about it. It's a survival/exploration game where you occasionally have hilarious/terrible/awesome interactions with other players.

          Rust is much more about building stuff.

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            February 7, 2014 9:57 PM

            And eventually Day Z will be about zombies, too.

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            February 7, 2014 10:37 PM

            Good point. Once you get established the individual maintenance required for survival is low. The real survival is how you fair against other people and coming up with creative solutions in your base location/layout.

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              February 7, 2014 11:25 PM

              Player vs player conflict is far more frequent in Rust.

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                February 8, 2014 6:44 AM

                Which is why I would say it's a bigger part of Day Z, in a weird way. You can go hours without seeing someone, slowly gearing up. Then you hear some bros talking beyond the wall in front of your or something and instantly crap your pants as you try to come up with a desperate plan for how to deal with the situation. Are they friendly? Do you want to take that chance?

                The intensity and importance of interacting with players in Day Z is really what makes it the unique game that it is.

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      February 8, 2014 6:48 AM

      NICK THE RAT IS KING OF CENTRAL . PAY YOUR TAXES OR GET BOXED

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      February 9, 2014 8:51 AM

      This article is seriously flawed. Rust has NEVER been a zombie survival game. It has, from the beginning, been a survival game that happened to use zombies as a temporary enemy while development focused on fleshing out the rest of it. Zombies were never meant to be in the finished game, they were just a quick and easily implemented enemy. Players and news outlets it seems have completely missed the memo despite it being well known all along. No one should be considering Rust as "no longer a zombie survival game" as it never was.

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      February 10, 2014 1:20 PM

      Vehicles?

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      February 12, 2014 12:45 AM

      They should replace them with bandits

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