Holding the throne of "biggest survival game on Steam," Rust unveils massive naval update with player-made boats, floating cities, more islands, and an AI overhaul

If the biggest games on Steam were celestial bodies, Rust would be an especially brown and bloody moon, kind of like the one from Iron Lung but with more survival game dirt and wood. Here in the year 2026, Rust is consistently the most-played survival game on Steam and still getting enormous updates. In a February 5 dev blog, Facepunch Studios unveiled a naval update packing an entire ocean worth of content, from player boats to city boats to evil boats. Oh, and the game is 50% off right now.

"It's a big one," the perilously long post begins, and player-made boats are the leading act. Plop down the aptly named "boat building station deployable" and "get building with your shipmates," sticking on steering wheels, sails, cannons, engines, planks for those 'friends' to walk, and whatever else your salty heart desires. (For building in general, there's a new first-person viewmodel for the planner, which I'm sure is a tremendous change to some.)

"Careful consideration and placement of your engines and sails are important if you want a seaworthy ship, as they will affect its handling and speed," the devs advise. "Sails and engines can both be reversed using the radial menu options for some nifty reverse parking."

Once your vessel is set, you can head to the new deep sea offshore region, a "high risk, high reward" area home to tropical islands hiding "semi-procedural" resources, floating cities full of vendors and supplies (and casinos, oddly enough), ghost ships, and "boats controlled by scientists," which somehow sounds weirder outside the context of Rust.

Ghost ships are also protected by scientists, by the way, and those scientists have gotten an AI tune-up with the naval update.

"If you fought a lot of scientists, you know trying to sneak or flank them is the perfect way to get killed," Facepunch says. "They always know where you are, and will instantly 180 and beam you if you try to play smart and outmanoeuvre them.

"Because of this, it's very tempting to either snipe them from very far away or camp behind a bottleneck and wait for them to inevitably rush in one by one.This makes taking a monument guarded by scientists a test of resources with a low skill ceiling. It boils it down to: do you know the cheese, and do you have enough ammo and bandages to grind through them?"

That's changing with this update, but only for scientists near oil rigs, ghost ships, and deep sea islands "for now."

"Unlike their cousins, they don't see through walls and need to rely on noises and recent sightings to find you," the devs promise. "This means you can bait them by peeking or making a noise, then go around and shoot them in the back. This is further facilitated by their lower reaction time. If you appear at an angle they didn't expect, they'll be surprised, and then you can shoot them down before they can even react.

"Additionally, they won't rush down into bottlenecks to be slaughtered by a camping player, instead they'll try to flank, throw smoke grenades and rush together, or just wait in ambush on the other side. They'll also be a lot more cautious against snipers, if they're hit or hear a shot, they'll all dive into cover and wait."

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