Garry Newman, one of the founders of Facepunch Studios and the creator of "Rust," recently announced that the open-world multiplayer survival game is finally leaving Early Access on Feb. 8, but they are far from finished with the project.
This announcement was made on Facepunch Studios' official website. Even though "Rust" is leaving Early Access, Newman assures fans that the development team will continue to push out updates and new content on a monthly basis.
"Don't think of this as us claiming that the game is done," Newman said, adding, "Think of this as us saying that if Early Access didn't exist we'd have released the game on Steam by now."
In order to facilitate this new monthly release schedule, "Rust" will copy what other similar games do and have a second version of the game available for download, a test server to speak. This test version, which they call the Staging Branch, will receive daily updates and will serve as the proving grounds to make sure any major changes do not end up breaking the game.
About the criticism that it is still too early for "Rust" to leave Early Access, Newman asked players not to compare the game with other finished products. He asks players to instead compare the current status of "Rust" with how it was when it first came out four years ago.
"We feel like if Early Access didn't exist and we had been making the game in secret, we'd be happy to put it on Steam now," he said on the matter.
"Rust" leaving Early Access will also have a side effect with regard to how much the game costs. Once the game goes retail in February, the price will go up from the current$19.99 to $34.99. Newman expressed his thoughts on the matter, saying that while unfortunate, this has always been the plan once the title leaves Early Access.
Newman closes off his statement by thanking everyone who played the game over the years and helped in improving it by reporting bugs and various other issues. "Thank you for making our game better," he said.
