Double Eleven had been in talks with Facepunch since 2016 about the idea of creating this console version, and the teams knew from the start that the two games “would need to be in separate universes, since the PC edition can expand as needed, and performance would be maintained as long as people continue to upgrade their hardware, while consoles, on the other hand, have finite resources that need to be managed more closely. “
Performance was the team’s “biggest and most demanding challenge” and Double Eleven needed to “disassemble and rewrite the major engine subsystems within Unity” to bring it up to standard.
Load times were also a big problem, and the team explained how the initial load times took up to 45 minutes to read and unzip the procedural map and its assets in memory. By implementing a new bootstrap system that would allow multiple Unity scenes and resource packs to load simultaneously, the game now loads “in about a minute or so.”
The team also decided to choose a point in the Facepunch code base that would serve as a good foundation and decided that it would rebuild some of the more advanced features as soon as a solid foundation on which to build was established.
This means that the Rust Console Edition will follow its own update roadmap, which differs from the PC version, which “will provide a great player experience while gradually introducing players to the vast amount of gameplay and content that makes Rust an incredible experience.”While Double Eleven is not quite ready to reveal the roadmap, the studio promises that part of it will be shown next to the game’s release in May.
The developer revealed that the Rust Console Edition will receive a Deluxe and Ultimate edition that includes Beta access in April 2021, 3-day early access and more.
To learn more about Rust, check out why everyone was playing Rust again earlier this year and read our review of the 2018 game.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.