There are many fantastic survival games to choose from in 2025, from long-standing favorites such as Valheim and Ark to modern hits like Palworld, Once Human, and Sons of the Forest. But to this day, when I think of the genre, I think of Rust. Waking up naked on a beach and hitting trees with a rock is the purest distillation of the format, and it remains as strangely compelling as ever. As it passes its eleven-year anniversary, Rust is now the biggest it’s ever been on Steam, and executive producer Alistair McFarlane thanks players for the record.
“Rust going [from] strength to strength,” McFarlane writes via X, “We just beat our all-time CCU [concurrent users], beating Covid and all other significant events.” A strong 2024 kept it among the top games on Steam even when challenged by new survival games such as Palworld and Once Human. Over the past 24 hours, however, Rust peaked at a high of 262,284 active users, eclipsing its previous peak of 245,243 set back in January 2021.
It’s now sold more than 17.5 million copies in total, and is just shy of a million Steam user reviews, holding an impressive 87% recommendation rate. “For the past several months, we’ve been hitting new monthly records,” McFarlane says. “This was a huge one we were unsure if we’d ever beat, not unless there was another global pandemic.” 2024 has been packed with updates and features, from a dramatic 2.0 world update to the introduction of backpacks, bikes, and a range of new weapons.
“Huge thanks to everyone supporting Rust,” McFarlane continues. “The team has worked tirelessly for the past 11 years.” In a developer blog, he says that “consistency” is the driving force moving into 2025, with “continued guaranteed monthly updates on the first Thursday of every month.” That starts with the Primitive update, set to launch on Thursday February 6 with its own dedicated game mode.
Primitive is “one of the most impactful updates to date,” McFarlane says. It transforms Rust into a pseudo medieval game, imagining a scenario where technology and ammunition are so scarce that survivors are forced to resort to more traditional options. That means fights will take place with swords, shields, and crossbows. Expect improvements to horses and the introduction of siege vehicles such as towers, catapults, ballistas, and battering rams.
Beyond that, McFarlane says Facepunch Studios has “a ton of content currently in development.” Among the other planned introductions for 2025 are a major 2.0 rework for cooking, a new Jungle biome that will play host to crocodiles, tigers, and more, and adjustments for both the softcore and hardcore game modes. That list is “skimming the surface of only a few key features,” McFarlane concludes, “We have a lot more planned.”
Whether it’s the allure of the best open-world games that gets your exploration senses tingling, or the interactions between real people that only the best multiplayer games can bring, we’ve highlighted the picks of the pack in 2025.
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