News

Before gets NSFW in its latest update (but it’s still beautiful as heck)

Before is a new spin on the survival game from Rust developer Facepunch Studios where, rather than controlling a single character, players must lead a whole tribe of cave people to survive in an intimidating post-Ice Age world. Up until now, we’ve had a few opportunities to gawk at the game’s naturalistic vistas and see early glimpses of how the player’s tribespeople interact with both the environment and each other. But thanks to a new update over on Before’s blog, we now have a better idea of the specifics on how they’ll live and fight in this still young society.…

News

Did Rust just become the first transgender MMO?

Unlike many other online multiplayer games, Rust doesn’t give players any control over what their character looks like. Instead, it randomly generates a set of features and ties them permanently to the player’s Steam account. This means that, even if they leave the game, their character will look the same when they return. It’s a fitting choice, given how primal the world of the survival-based Rust is. Just as in real life, Rust doesn’t let you choose what you want to look like, but instead spits you out naked into its world with a body you had no say in, and tells…

Feature

Of carnage and cannibals: The lawless wilds of Rust

No arts; no letters; no society; and […] worst of all, continual fear, and the danger of violent death; the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”, so says Thomas Hobbes, describing his conception of the “State of Nature” in Leviathan (1651). This quote is one of the first things that comes to my mind when playing Rust, which is perhaps one of the most fully realized visions of Hobbes’ greatest fear; a world of anarchy, free of any governance and thus plagued by an unforgiving dog-eat-dog state of affairs. Though we can never know for sure…