Rust has now sold over 12 million copies

Rust beginner's guide — (Image credit: Facepunch Studios)

Multiplayer survival sandbox Rust, a game of base-building, bashing things with rocks, and using voice chat to convince other players not to kill you, has now been bought over 12 million times. Developers Facepunch Studios announced the milestone as part of a wrap-up of the previous year's development, touching on 12 months' worth of successes and new additions:

"2021 was an exceptional year for Rust in almost all regards, after 8 years of continuous development Rust has gone from strength to strength. In 2021 Rust blew up on Twitch, we saw record-high player counts, released Voice Props DLC Pack, World revamp, missions, freight trains, underwater labs, gestures, submarines, MLRS and so much more."

The Voice Props DLC Pack, which includes a megaphone for shouting at other players as well as a cassette recorder, mic stand, chunky old school mobile phone, disco floors, and other audio-themed accoutrements, was Rust's best-selling DLC so far.

The 2021 recap also mentions some of what's ahead for Rust, with updates scheduled for the first Thursday of every month "along with occasional hotfixes and holiday events." February will bring quality-of-life updates, and an "arctic monument" is in the works. "In addition to new monuments, this year you can expect to see new weapons, deployables, events, vehicles, animals and so much more."

If you're interested in getting into it, here's how to survive your first day in Rust.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.