Your Rust dong size is determined by your Steam ID

Rust dong

In many ways, Rust has always been something of a digital social experiment: What happens when people are thrown together in a primitive, isolated environment, with no rules beyond "survive?" (Answer: It's Lord of the Flies, every single time.) Back in March, the experiment got a little deeper (and the uproar, a little louder) when the game was updated to arbitrarily assign unchangeable faces and skin tones to players, and now an even more sensitive bit of anatomy has been adjusted in a manner that will likely please some players more than others.

The hot tip came from Reddit, of course, (via PCGamesN), in the form of a video showing the effects of different Steam IDs on penis size. The actual workings of the system remain a closely-guarded mystery, but Rust creator Garry Newman confirmed that the report is accurate. "Like tallness, face, head size, jaw definition, race, and limb size, penises are also randomized," he said. And, like those other features, it's tied to your Steam ID and cannot be changed; if you come up short, so to speak, you're just going to have to deal with it. Maybe buy a big pickup truck or something.

Despite the many variations in "features," everyone in Rust shares one common attribute: They're all dudes. That may change in the not-too-distant future, however, as Facepunch revealed in its latest blog post that it has begun the process of adding a female model to the game. But don't get too wound up over the prospect of being trapped on an island filled with naked swimsuit models.

"We really don’t want to make the female model unrealistic in the sense of her being aesthetically idealized," Tom—presumably Facepunch artist Thomas Butters—wrote. "In the same way that our male models aren’t perfect specimens of the male body, neither should the female be. No huge boobs nor four-inch waists here."

That's as it should be, and as it has to be, really. Unlike the ESRB, I don't have a problem with nudity in videogames, but a game filled with male schlubs and female supermodels would look pretty weird. Butters added that in-game testing of the female model could begin as soon as next week.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.