Developer Gary Newman is thrilled by the response from players after the new update for Rust randomly assigns skin color and facial features to all players.
[dropcap size=small]I[/dropcap]n a recent Rust patch, players were assigned random skin tones and faces, meaning the multiplayer survival game’s servers are no longer filled with the same pale naked man running around hacking at trees, boulders, and each other.
Since a player’s appearance is tied to their Steam ID, it remains persistent for all of their lives on every server. “Just like in real life, you are who you are – you can’t change your skin color or your face,” says Garry Newman.
“Right now your avatar is randomized via three things. Skin color, head mesh and head material. We only have 2 face textures and 2 face materials, which means there’s 4 possible combinations. We will be adding more of these later on (at which point your face will probably change).”
Newman hopes that this will teach people about empathy and what other people have to deal with on a regular basis.
Some people aren’t happy about the fact that they aren’t white anymore. I guess that’s also been accompanied by a bunch of racist language that’s been flying around. It’s not all bad, Some people could care less about the skin color and would like more hair and body mod options.
Newman says, “It makes me wish I’d set up some analystics to record how many times the N-word was used before and after the update. It was used quite a bit from what I’ve seen.”
Rust in available now for GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, and OS X.
