Rust devs surveil cheaters like they're 'playing an RTS game': 'Every gun shot, every message, every dropped item, every kind of interaction is logged'

The worst part about getting matched up against a cheater in any game is knowing there's not much you can do. You can send in a report, you can wait for some automatic trigger to ban them, you can curse the gods in a faith tradition of your choice, but no one with any authority to call out foul play is sitting there and watching you. Except in Rust, where they might be.

At least, that's how it is according to facepunch COO Alistair McFarlane, as he discussed in a post on X. He stated that cheaters aren't safe from scrutiny when the admins log off, as they're "watching when we're not connected to the server like we're playing an RTS game. Every gun shot, every message, every dropped item, every kind of interaction is logged, recorded and can be played back or watched live."

In a reply further down the thread, he explained that cheat reports go into automated systems that "analyze the player" before taking "certain actions"; "sometimes immediately, sometimes delayed." He also noted that "dedicated staff are always reviewing reports, high reported accounts are flagged higher."

It's sort of a vague explanation, but dedicated cheat developers are always in an arms race with the developers of whatever game they're trying to disrupt, so it's pretty standard to talk in generalizations that give players an idea of what's going on without tipping off bad actors.

Facepunch clearly wants to drive home that it takes cheating seriously. It recently announced a move to Secure Boot and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) requirements that, while opt-in for now, are likely to become mandatory at some point. Cheating has been a deep thorn in the game's side for ages and is the reason the game isn't coming to Linux. Whether you think measures like this are invasive or merely doing what's required, they're seemingly here to stay.