Rust Naval Update Delayed: Facepunch Takes a Breather

The Naval Adventure Takes a Detour

So, here’s the scoop – the Rust Naval update has decided to take a little vacation, and we’re looking at a new launch date in 2026! Alistair McFarlane, the COO of Facepunch Studios, dropped this bombshell with a post delightfully titled, “We bit off more than we could chew.” Now, as someone who has definitely bitten off more than I can chew at a buffet, I totally get it.

Initially, everyone was all geared up for a grand launch at the end of this year, but apparently, things weren’t quite up to snuff. Alistair lets us know that as they got closer to the big day, they found themselves feeling a bit more anxious and less excited about the state of the update. This naval overhaul was supposed to be massive, bringing in loads of new stuff and giving the old features a shiny new coat of paint.

The Decision to Delay

In a moment of honest reflection, he confessed, “We took on too much.” Facepunch had two options: they could’ve thrown the update out there and crossed their fingers, hoping for the best, or they could hit pause, take a deep breath, and avoid kicking the servers into chaos during the holiday rush. Spoiler alert – they chose the latter! Alistair reassures us that they have no desire to drop server populations by hundreds or spend the festive season battling performance hiccups. Nobody wants to play the Grinch during the holidays!

Rust has still been holding the title of the most-played survival game on Steam pretty much consistently throughout 2025. If you ask me, that confidence from Facepunch to delay is more than justified! They recognize that the game is in pretty good shape without the naval patch, and pushing something out that could potentially break things just wasn’t worth it.

So, mark your calendars! The Rust Naval update is now officially set to launch on Thursday, February 5, 2026. In the meantime, they’ll be polishing up performance and tweaking things, making sure that when it finally arrives, it’s as solid as a ship on calm waters.

If you’re itching to see what Facepunch has been cooking up in the meantime, they’ve got you covered with test servers on the Rust staging branch. Just remember, this preview comes with some delightful bugs, performance quirks, and all the messy bits they’re still ironing out.

Coming up in January, expect some light updates, a nostalgic look back at 2025, and a teaser of what exciting things are in store for 2026. Stay tuned, Rust fans, the adventure continues!”.