Facepunch founder Garry Newman has denied the existence of a secret Rust sequel, after a Steam listing for the game popped up online.
Suspicions of some kind of viral Rust 2 announcement were piqued last night when a reddit thread appeared highlighting a — real — Steam page for "Rust 2." Within minutes, the thread elicited a swift, potentially teasing response from a Facepunch developer, stating: "You saw nothing."
But as players debated whether this new game might be a full sequel or the long-awaited port of Rust on a new engine (the current version was built using Unity), Newman ultimately stepped in to set the record straight.
"Nope. We're not making Rust 2," Newman said in a short statement passed to PC Gamer, claiming that he had "no idea at all" what the Rust 2 Steam page was all about. At the time of writing, the page remains online.
Newman has mentioned the possibility of a Rust 2 before, such as when he spoke out against Unity's infamous plan to introduce costly Runtime Fees for the use of games built on its engine. "Let's not make the same mistake again, Rust 2 definitely won't be a Unity game," Newman said back in 2023.
Originally launched for PC and Mac in early access back in 2013, the popular survival game was later ported to consoles in 2021, at a time that the game was receiving a lockdown-era resurgence in popularity. In the years since, the game has remained a Steam favorite, and more modern versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S arrived in 2025.
Fans have long wondered if and when a sequel might arrive, especially as Facepunch has spent years building its own new engine, s&box (pronounced Sandbox), that's finally set for launch later this month. With that timeline in mind, was the Steam page just a hoax — or is Newman being coy about future plans?
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
