RUST Primitive Update

The February 2024 Primitive Update: Highlights and Game-Changing Features

The RUST Primitive Update has redefined survival as we know it by removing most modern technology, forcing players to rely on rudimentary tools, weapons, and tactics. Without modern guns or high-tech raiding gear, the game shifts towards a more raw, pre-industrial experience in which bows, spears, and makeshift explosives reign.

To help balance the Primitive Update’s shift, new siege weapons like Catapults, Battering Rams, and Ballistas provide fresh ways to breach base. At the same time shields will introduce new added protection in combat. Resource scarcity, altered building mechanics, and a revamped loot system enhance RUST’s challenges while creating a brutal, strategic survival mode that rewards raw skill and adaptability.

It’s time to break out your bow and melee combat skills and pick up some of those medieval skins that’ll help you blend in with all the changes.

Primitive Game Mode

The Primitive Game Mode in RUST is an optional server setting that pits players in a primitive survival-focused mode that removes modern weapons, technology, and high-tier building materials. With no guns, electricity, or advanced raiding tools, survival depends on resourcefulness, siege weapons, and mastering primitive combat.

Primitive Game Mode in RUST drastically alters gameplay by limiting weapons and armor, adjusting resource availability, and removing high-tech raiding tools. Players must adapt to a world without modern firearms, metal-tier defenses, or helicopters, relying instead on primitive weapons, siege tools, and strategic survival.

Introduction of Siege Weapons

In this update, five new powerful siege weapons can be crafted and wielded as raiding tools. These siege weapons are designed for primitive and vanilla gameplay and offer new ways to breach enemy defenses and defend your bases. Players can now use the following siege weapons:

Catapults: Launches powerful projectiles with a large impact radius. Can use Scattershot, Firebombs, Propane Explosive Bombs, and People as ammunition
Battering Rams: A large, Low Grade Fuel powered vehicle designed to destroy wooden and stone player buildings
Ballistas: Large wheeled Crossbow for long-range combat; can be deployed on terrain and towed by horses. It uses the following new bolt-type ammunition: Pitchfork Bolt, Piercer Bolt, Hammerhead Bolt, and Incendiary Bolt.
Mounted Ballistas: A massive stationary Ballista designed for a base defense that can use the same ammunition types as the standard Ballista.
Siege Towers: A three-level raid tool for breaching compounds and accessing windows. It can be towed by horses and pushed by players.

These siege weapons shift standard raiding away from high-tech explosives, encouraging strategic placement, teamwork, and resourceful attacks. Of course, these are most beneficial and effective in Primitive Game Mode servers.

Introduction of Shields

Shields are a brand-new addition to RUST with the Primitive Update. They offer players a new way to defend against frontal attacks in melee and ranged combat.

Players can equip shields in the backpack slot, and they will provide an added layer of protection but come with trade-offs, including reduced visibility and limited movement. There are three different shield variants available:

1. Wooden Shield (Basic Protection)

Best for: Early-game defense, low-cost crafting.
Damage Absorption: 65% of incoming damage blocked.
Durability: 300 HP – breaks after prolonged use.
Trade-offs: Larger coverage area but least protection among shields.

2. Reinforced Wooden Shield (Balanced Defense)

Best for: Mid-tier protection with better damage mitigation.
Damage Absorption: 75% of incoming damage blocked.
Durability: 300 HP – same as the wooden shield but absorbs more damage.
Trade-offs: More protective than the wooden shield but still leaves some damage exposure.

3. Metal Shield (Best Protection)

Best for: Maximum defense, especially against NPCs and ranged attacks.
Damage Absorption: 95% of incoming damage blocked.
Durability: 300 HP – highest protection among all shields.
Trade-offs: Heavier, more noticeable, and takes longer to transition between blocking and attacking.

Each shield offers varying degrees of damage absorption; players must strategically decide when to raise their shield or go on the offensive.

Shields function as a defensive tool, allowing players to block incoming damage while using a single-handed weapon. Holding the Right Mouse Button raises the shield, sacrificing aiming and sprinting for temporary protection, but shields can only be held up for four seconds before needing to reset.

Each shield has a durability bar that depletes as it absorbs damage, and once broken, it will be automatically unequipped. While not in use, shields appear on the player’s back but provide no passive protection, requiring active use to be effective.

New Mini Crossbow Weapon

Facepunch introduced the Mini Crossbow, a multi-shot ranged weapon in RUST’s Primitive Update, as an early-game alternative to traditional Bows and Crossbows. While it has reduced damage (-17%) and a shorter range compared to the standard Crossbow, it compensates with a quad-bolt firing system, allowing players to fire up to four arrows in rapid succession before requiring a lengthy reload.

The Mini Crossbow supports one attachment slot (excluding the Weapon Flashlight), making it a versatile but situational weapon for early skirmishes and ambush tactics.

Horse Overhaul

The Primitive Update has introduced significant changes to horses in RUST, changing previous behaviors and adding new abilities to traverse many different types of landscapes and monuments they previously could not.

Horses have also gained a handful of new noteworthy abilities, such as:

They can now be pulled when being led by players.
They can swim in the water (to a degree) where they previously did not and would often get stuck and become a lost cause.
While being ridden, they can auto-avoid trees in their path, making controlling them subtly easier for the rider(s).
Horses can now skid by pressing the CTRL key when the horse is galloping forward.
They now also have the ability to tow many of the new siege weapons, giving them a new utility that did not exist before. This new ability will surely increase the value of these horses, especially at raid time.

The Medieval Pack DLC

The Medieval Pack DLC rolled out with the Primitive Update. This DLC pack contains eight items and skins that have a medieval aesthetic intended to fit in with the Primitive Update.

Inside the DLC, players will find the Knight Armour set and the Medieval set, which includes:

Knights Armour Cuirass (Skin)
Knights Armour Helmet (Skin)
Knights Armour Skirt Plates (Skin)
Medieval Barricade (Deployable Item)
Medieval Assault Rifle (Skin)
Medieval Large Wooden Box (Skin)
Medieval Sheet Metal Door (Skin)
Medieval Sheet Metal Double Door (Skin)

The Medieval Pack DLC is available on the RUST Item Store under the General tab for USD 12.99.

Ragdoll Updates

Bikes, horses, and even catapult-launched players now have Ragdoll physics for specific situations. When players take heavy collision damage while riding a bike or horse, they can fling through the air from their seats. Horses will also ragdoll if they skid or stay airborne too long.

Bike collision damage has been re-balanced to reduce instant deaths (if you know, you know), but if players are launched from a Catapult, expect a guaranteed fatal landing.

This update added a new social integration layer to the game. This new feature helps players communicate with their Steam friends automatically and optionally with their Discord friends in the in-game chat without utilizing the Steam Overlay or tabbing out of the game altogether.

This new feature allows players to reduce the risk of dying or encountering other system errors while adding a new communication convenience. This feature is convenient if you utilize Discord as a primary voice chat system (as many RUST players do), as swapping Discord server links is much easier.

Quality of Life Improvements

Here’s a quick rundown direct from Facepunch’s Primitive Update post:

Pickup sleeping bags — Players can now pick up any sleeping bag as long they are in TC range
IO Reskinning — Can now reskin IO deployables with the spray can without disconnecting it entirely
Phone names — Phones can now have names up to 30 characters long
Pumpkin Rolling — Dropped pumpkins no longer roll indefinitely
Backpacks on Weapon Racks — Backpacks and shields can now be used with weapon racks

Final Thoughts on the Primitive Update

The Primitive Update is one of the most significant overhauls to RUST’s survival experience, introducing a raw, pre-industrial challenge with limited technology, new siege weapons, shields, and an improved combat dynamic. Adding the Mini Crossbow, revamped horses, ragdoll mechanics, and social integrations reshapes both PvP and base raiding strategies while enhancing overall gameplay immersion.

Whether you’re embracing Primitive Game Mode, testing out new raiding tools, or gearing up with medieval-themed cosmetics, there’s plenty to explore—so get out there and adapt, conquer, and survive in this brutal new era of RUST!