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Garry Newman from Facepunch Studios has put out a new blog post detailing their final plans for the Linux version of the survival game Rust.

It's quite an open and honest post about the state of things, noting that they didn't really do a good job of actually supporting the Linux version. The post mentions how they never routinely tested it, unless they knew something was wrong. Newman also mentions how the "quiet majority" of Linux gamers accept that they're often a second-class citizen but we shouldn't be as we are paying the same. Which is why they made the decision to stop supporting Linux originally in July last year.

Their plan for the Linux version going forward is to split it away from Windows and Mac, along with getting no new features but it will see "maintenance patches". So Linux owners can still play it and play online together, but not with Windows and Mac players.

Facepunch will also not work on any future Linux games, as they "can't/won't properly support it".

A shame this happened, but nice to finally draw a line under it and know exactly what's happening.

If you are after a survival game that's supported on Linux, I can recommend 7 Days to Die which is really good fun [Humble Store - Steam]. Our livestreamer, Sin, regularly shows it off on our Twitch Channel.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Gamewitch Aug 10, 2019
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: TheSHEEEP
Quoting: Mountain ManSeems like every time these guys make an announcement about Linux, they live up to their name.
Well, it's kinda unlikely we'll ever hear about them again. At least here.
Correct. Unless they suddenly support us again in future, this is likely the last ever post about them :)

See I'm kind of glad I was all ready aware of some of the stuff Facepunch used to pull back in the day with Garry's mod. Nothing about this saga with Rust has really surprised me. Well at least we won't be hearing about them round here, which ironically is how most places are when it comes to Rust seems the last year or two the game has really died off player base wise.
Xpander Aug 10, 2019
Quoting: Ehvis
Quoting: XpanderI Hope valve will hurry up with the EAC as the windows client in wine (last time i tried, non eac server) worked way way better anyway, with double the framerates of native client

What if that would mean installing a root level spy daemon?

Don't really care, if its secure enough and enables me to play some games. If there would be massive reports about the security issues with it, yeah sure it will be bad then. But im not that much of a tin foil hat guy.

edit: and before someone comes calling.


I use linux beacuse of the flexibility. Security is nice bonus to have but not the end of the world.


Last edited by Xpander on 10 August 2019 at 3:30 pm UTC
Wendigo Aug 10, 2019
Well I think the fact that they not even test their game(s) on all platforms they are selling them for says a lot about the QA of the game developer. If you do it like that its no wonder that things will break sooner or later. Same with the developer of ARK. The longer you neglect one platform the harder it gets to get it on par with the other ones and thus the support will be dropped entirely in the end since it would take too much effort to get it on par again.
gojul Aug 10, 2019
Quoting: LinuxwarperThe reason for this makes perfect sense. Linux has 1% marketshare. In my opinion, with some exceptions, making a Linux port is not worth it. Because of that I am content playing games through Proton as long as it runs well.
But if ever the time comes where Linux gains 10% marketshare, I will no longer be happy with Proton and demand native port. Because at that point developers will have little to no excuse for doing a native release, and I will consider it a big negative if developers rely on Proton.

As long as Proton works fine or whatever works fine and offers the same experience as Windows I don't care what the underlying technology is, frankly speaking. Proton is really impressive. Of course I'd prefer native ports and Proton has some limitations (especially w/ Alt-Tab unless you play in window mode) but overall it works fine.
g000h Aug 10, 2019
Sharing my opinion on the Facepunch post from Garry to the Linux RUST community:

It seems a relatively frank and reasonable communication and certainly a lot better than keeping quiet and leaving Linux people in the dark. Even if RUST is going to die on Linux as a result of this, I personally have played lots of it and enjoyed it on Linux and for that I'm grateful.

Yes, the Linux side has been badly supported over the years - It was built for Linux without the QA testing on Linux that professional game development demands. The recent updates to the game have introduced bugs and issues, and the game is currently not working well at all (but I've still been playing it). I actually could live with Facepunch continuing to do a poor job on Linux (e.g. not making much effort in testing or bugfixing) but at least keep the game working and in parity with the Win/Mac versions.

The stats that Garry shares are not painting the correct picture of Linux marketshare. His stats suggest that Linux users account for 0.1% of the total player-base. This *is* true right now, but when the game was working properly under Linux (i.e. March 2019 and earlier) then the Linux share was 0.34% (and it would still be approx that level if the game was working better on Linux).

I examined various publicly-accessible RUST stats, and Garry's suggestion that Linux is a Cheater's Sanctuary is completely off. My own calculations suggest that even if every single one of the 217 unique Linux players was cheating, then that would account for 28% of the total cheaters (i.e. a minimum of 72% of the cheaters are using Windows). This is a ridiculous notion (100% of Linux users are cheating), and I personally believe that ~ 99% of cheaters on RUST are doing it from the Windows platform.

Unity does not currently support IL2CPP scripting on Linux builds, and Facepunch wants to use IL2CPP for future RUST development. If Unity was updated so that IL2CPP worked on Linux builds, then potentially Facepunch could refactor the Linux client into the regular development cycle. I sent Garry an email asking if this could be considered, and that the current Plan could be dropped if the Unity situation was resolved. I also shared my stats analysis with Garry too.

Into the future, hopefully this will all turn around and the game will "come back" to Linux.


Last edited by g000h on 10 August 2019 at 6:46 pm UTC
WorMzy Aug 10, 2019
Facepunch can't (be arsed to) learn how to code for Linux, so they're giving up. Not really surprising, I have come to expect little and less from this third-rate developer with their openly Linux-hostile lead dev.

I spent a lot of time in this game in the early days (back when there was a single map) and I have a lot of fond memories with it, but it has never performed well, and has frequently been unplayable. I'm disappointed but not surprised that Facepunch are cutting their losses and running away. I doubt their OSX build has a particularly good outlook either.
Asu Aug 11, 2019
just make sure it works with proton. Then it's fine.
eddie-foss Aug 12, 2019
I bought at the launch and I had the game for 3 years, it was long before Steam had refund option.
I wished and hoped that things was different but they lied and they didn't give a "F" for who paid for, as a customer it's the worst service by company and guy which tries to manipulate other people with some kind of "confirmation bias" that they believes, most of us linuxers just asked a playable game not the piece of cr*p that they sold, after all, EULA sucks and guess what, I think that they just trying to avoid a lawsuit for refunds.

Well, I won't have anything back, their attitude was so disgusting and because that I deleted from my Library all games from Facepunch and Garry related after their bitter post against Linux customers, anyway, IMHO, as they said "linuxers are insignificant with their 0.1% share" just pull out Linux version and give the money back, we gonna spend somewhere else, it's easy.:D


Last edited by eddie-foss on 12 August 2019 at 7:56 am UTC
BrazilianGamer Aug 12, 2019
Bottom line. FU Linux gamers. Thanks but I'll pass this one. Like forever
g000h Aug 12, 2019
I feel like commenting that there are lots of other Studios (mainly AAA) which haven't made the effort to release a Linux game at all (or very rarely). And yet, thanks to Proton and WINE, plenty of Linux gamers are buying from those Studios and helping to line their pockets. It would seem appropriate to detest those companies *more*.


Last edited by g000h on 12 August 2019 at 1:16 pm UTC
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