Rust player says goodbye to his server neighbours by constructing a giant, illuminated middle finger: 'Making one of these is often how I like to end a successful wipe'

A giant tower illuminated with a middle finger stands in Rust's snowy biome.

(Image credit: Facepunch Studios, UniverseBear)

It can be tough getting on with your neighbours. Sometimes you want to say things to them, like "Don't let your adult children play bassy music until 2AM", or "Don't leave your dog alone at home all day so he spends the whole. Time. Barking." But for the sake of a peaceful life, you don't. Instead, you sit there, quietly seething.

When you move out, though, all bets are off, and you can tell everyone who lives nearby exactly how you feel. And I've never seen a moving out message sent quite so spectacularly as by Rust player and reddit user UniverseBear, who constructed a giant, illuminated middle finger to say sayonara to his server buddies.

Showing the neighbors how I feel about them. from r/playrust

UniverseBear believes that "there's most likely a much more efficient way to do this", though PC Gamer's resident Rust fanatic Andrea Shearon expressed her admiration after her own dalliance with the survival sim's electronics system. In fairness, she was distracted by a Guns 'n' Roses obsessed neighbour who'd shoot her every time she'd go on the roof. Sounds like a case where a giant, flashing middle finger would come in handy.

Given how neighbours typically behave in Rust, namely by trying to murder you and steal all your stuff, constructing a giant, flashing Finger of Sauron is practically polite. Naturally, the comments are almost wholly in favour of it. "Truly a thing of beauty," says the appropriately named FlashFlash100yd. phish32786, meanwhile, says "This is the level of petty I play for."

2026 is shaping up to be a big year for Rust. The highly anticipated naval update, which was delayed out of 2025, is due to arrive within the next couple of months. The update will introduce ship construction, naval combat, and piracy to Facepunch's survival sim. The latter is not strictly a hard-coded feature, but given what Rust's players are like, oceangoing thievery is all but guaranteed.

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.

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