Rust: over 4,500 players perma-banned

Facepunch Studios has implemented a new anti-cheat system for their survival game Rust, which has resulted in the immediate ban of 4,621 players.

The system is called CheatPunch and currently it is only applied to official Rust servers while it is being refined, before being pushed out to all servers and players.

Facepunch expects the anti-cheat system to be circumvented, but they vow their system will constantly evolve to combat cheaters.

The bans are immediate and not contestable. Facepunch plans to put up a site that shows evidence of why players were banned so there can be no whinging.

Facepunch boss Garry Newman said:

If you get kicked from the official servers with the message that you’ve been banned, then you have been caught. You’re a naughty boy. You know what you have done. You won’t get unbanned. We know it was your 9 year old cousin. We know your computer got hijacked. We know that the CIA is getting you banned from all your games on Steam so you will join them in the hunt for aliens. We’re aiming to get a site set up for people that have been banned so they can go and see proof that they’ve been caught.

Survival game Rust has proven immensely popular, bolstered by a large number of Steam Holiday sales.

Developed by Facepunch Studios of Gary’s Mod fame, Rust is technically still in its alpha development stage, although you can dive into the action via Steam for $19.99.

Early access is an interesting recent phenomenon in PC gaming, ostensibly allowing players to help fund the ongoing development of a game they are interested in, and at the same time test the game for the developers.

This means the final product might be vastly different to the one played during development. Hopefully it results in a really solid and fun game when it is finally launched.