What You Need To Know About Rust's Forced Progress Wipes

Rust is one of the more popular titles in the survival genre. It first debuted on early access back in 2013 and received a full release in 2018, and it's attracted a dedicated online community. The multiplayer-only title drops the player into a harsh open-world wilderness and forces them to eke out an existence — despite hostile animals and players, as well as  scarce resources.

Lately, Rust has seen a bit of a revival as popular streamers have been trying it out, but not all the attention has been positive. In Dec. 2020, YouTube streamer Valkyrae abruptly closed her Rust steam, after possibly receiving toxic comments from viewers. In early Jan. 2021, Twitch streamer xQc accused members of his server of "stream sniping" him. 

Streamer drama aside, Rust is more popular than ever, setting a record for its most concurrent players on Jan. 2, 2021. With so many new Rust players, now's a good time to cover one of the game's most important features: the monthly progress wipe. Here's everything you need to know about it.

Rust's monthly progress wipes eliminate everything a player has done over the previous month, forcing them to start fresh. Every structure they've built and every resource they've gathered is gone, and they revert back to their starting kit of a rock and a torch. Progress wipes happen on both public and private servers, but players running a private server can opt to wipe their progress more often.

The progress wipes typically coincide with updates to the game, which developer Facepunch Studios often details on its blog. Among other fixes, the biggest change in the Jan. 2021 update was a forced wipe of every player's building blueprints. 

They have other purposes, too. The monthly progress wipe declutters the game world, removing abandoned structures and objects left by players who have stopped playing the game. It also reinforces the game's theme. Without progress wipes, a player could gather so many resources that survival is no longer a challenge.

Progress wipes occur on the first Thursday of every month at 2pm EST.