Games like Rust
If Rust is your kind of game, the closest matches are No Man's Sky, Satisfactory and Out of Reach — picked from the ranked list below. Reviewers single out its clan alliances shift constantly, dark and immersive. Each pick is ranked by what players of this game also play, shared genres and tags, and review-mined similarity — not a generic popularity list.
Get personalized picks →Rust is a survival sandbox game set on a hostile island where players must gather resources, construct bases, and engage in PvP combat to endure. Developed by Facepunch Studios and released in 2018 at $19.99, the game features massive open-world gameplay centered on base-building, resource scarcity, raiding mechanics, and clan politics. Players manage survival needs while navigating constantly shifting alliances and high-stakes encounters with other survivors. Steam reviewers have given it 87% positive feedback from over 519,000 reviews. Players describe the experience as dark, immersive, and tense, with base customization feeling deeply personal and surviving a wipe feeling like a genuine victory. The game is not supported on Steam Deck.
About Rust: The only aim in Rust is to survive. Everything wants you to die - the island’s wildlife, other inhabitants, the environment, and other survivors. Do whatever it takes to last another night.
Players who liked Rust also play
Steam players who put hours into Rust also tend to own these titles — a signal called collaborative filtering. imho.run cross-references millions of library ownership patterns to surface games whose real audiences overlap, regardless of whether their genre tags match.
No Man's Sky
WHY THIS
Shares base building and an immersive mood with Rust.
Top pick for Rust fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Adventure with Rust.
No Man's Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe.
Satisfactory
WHY THIS
Shares base building and an immersive mood with Rust.
Second-strongest match for Rust fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and Adventure with Rust.
Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven!
Out of Reach
WHY THIS
Shares base building and an immersive mood with Rust.
Third-strongest match for Rust fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
You’re a castaway stranded in the middle of nowhere. Storm is gone, the worst certainly not. Look for food and resources, craft gear, make shelters. These are the basics, you need much more to stay alive on this cut-off-the-world, yet not desert island. Build & burn, sail & explore, be Out of Reach!
Don't Starve Together
WHY THIS
Shares resource scarcity, base building and a stressful mood with Rust.
Ranked #4 for Rust fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.
DeadPoly
WHY THIS
Shares base building with Rust.
Ranked #5 for Rust fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
DeadPoly is a polygon arcade zombie survival looter shooter with base building, crafting, scavenging, leveling, questing, and more, but your only goal is survival, everything else is optional.
XERA: Survival
WHY THIS
Shares base building and a stressful mood with Rust.
Ranked #6 for Rust fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Action-focused, open world survival shooter, PvPvE against fellow mercenaries and lethal XOIDS. Raid for resources alone or with team-mates, build and defend your base, stash your gear and survive against the odds. You are the hunters. You are the hunted. And the robots never sleep…
Garry's Mod
WHY THIS
Shares an immersive mood with Rust.
Ranked #7 for Rust fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie with Rust.
Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play.
Terraria
WHY THIS
Shares an immersive mood with Rust.
Ranked #8 for Rust fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game. Four Pack also available!
Reviewers mention these as similar to Rust
Surfaced from review text: when other players write 'if you liked X, try Y', we catch the name and resolve it back to a Steam game.
ARC Raiders
WHY THIS
Shares a stressful mood with Rust.
Reviewers of Rust cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action with Rust.
ARC Raiders is a multiplayer extraction adventure, set in a lethal future earth, ravaged by a mysterious mechanized threat known as ARC.
VEIN
WHY THIS
Shares a dark mood with Rust.
Reviewers of Rust cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and RPG with Rust.
VEIN is a post-apocalyptic survival multiplayer sandbox game. Gather supplies to survive, explore abandoned buildings, defend your home, and rebuild society, whether alone or with friends.
V Rising
WHY THIS
Shares a dark mood with Rust.
Reviewers of Rust cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Adventure with Rust.
Awaken as a Vampire. Hunt for blood in nearby settlements to regain your strength and evade the scorching sun to survive. Raise your castle and thrive in an ever-changing, open world full of mystery. Gain allies online and conquer the land of the living.
DayZ
WHY THIS
Shares base building and a stressful mood with Rust.
Reviewers of Rust cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Adventure with Rust.
How long can you survive a post-apocalyptic world? A land overrun with an infected "zombie" population, where you compete with other survivors for limited resources. Will you team up with strangers and stay strong together? Or play as a lone wolf to avoid betrayal? This is DayZ – this is your story.
ARK: Survival Evolved
WHY THIS
Shares an immersive mood with Rust.
Reviewers of Rust cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Stranded on the shores of a mysterious island, you must learn to survive. Use your cunning to kill or tame the primeval creatures roaming the land, and encounter other players to survive, dominate... and escape!
Escape from Tarkov
WHY THIS
Shares survival management and a stressful mood with Rust.
Reviewers of Rust cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Massively Multiplayer with Rust.
Escape from Tarkov is the original extraction FPS where every raid is a gamble with death. Prep your raid, bleed, endure and fight through ruthless PMC players and Scavs, gain tactical advantage and cling to your loot — only extraction decides if you live or lose it all.
SCUM
WHY THIS
Shares base building and a stressful mood with Rust.
Reviewers of Rust cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Traverse punishing environments, looting, crafting and evading the constant threats to your life. The unprecedented levels of character customization and progression are your ultimate tools for survival.
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS
WHY THIS
Shares a stressful mood with Rust.
Reviewers of Rust cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Adventure with Rust.
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, the high-stakes winner-take-all shooter that started the Battle Royale craze, is free-to-play! Drop into diverse maps, loot unique weapons and supplies, and survive in an ever-shrinking zone where every turn could be your last.
Cheaper alternatives
Games in the same vein priced at least 40% below Rust at current Steam store prices.
Garry's Mod
WHY THIS
Shares an immersive mood with Rust.
Priced ~75% under Rust on Steam right now. Shares Indie with Rust.
Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play.
Lethal Company
WHY THIS
Priced ~50% under Rust on Steam right now. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
A co-op horror about scavenging at abandoned moons to sell scrap to the Company.
Left 4 Dead 2
WHY THIS
Priced ~50% under Rust on Steam right now. Shares Action with Rust.
Set in the zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead 2 is a co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns.
People Playground
WHY THIS
Priced ~50% under Rust on Steam right now. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Shoot, stab, burn, poison, tear, vaporise, or crush ragdolls in a large open space.
Fallout: New Vegas
WHY THIS
Priced ~50% under Rust on Steam right now. Shares Action and RPG with Rust.
Welcome to Vegas. New Vegas. Enjoy your stay!
Free alternatives
Free-to-play games that recommended players of this title also tend to enjoy.
Ultimate Custom Night
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Welcome to the ultimate FNAF mashup, featuring 50 selectable characters and custom difficulties!
Bongo Cat
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Massively Multiplayer with Rust.
Bongo cat needs your help. Bongo cat needz more hatz!!! Every time you press a key, Bongo cat will punch your taskbar. Type, click, play, work to collect more points. Which hats will you find?
Indigo Park: Chapter 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Explore the abandoned childhood wonder of Indigo Park! Guided by Rambley the Raccoon, help restore power to the destroyed amusement park while you run from the reason it shut down.
Counter-Strike:Global Offensive
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action with Rust.
Counter-Strike:Global Offensive (CS:GO) expands upon the team-based action gameplay that it pioneered when it was launched over 2 decades ago. CS:GO features new maps, characters, weapons, and game modes, and delivers updated versions of the classic CS content (de_dust2, etc.).
The Expendabros
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
The Expendabros have assembled and set their sights on the forces of ruthless arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks in the forests of Eastern Europe.
Iron Snout
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Iron Snout is a fast, colorful and brutal fighting game in which you will be helping a piglet fight for its life against hordes of wolves.
The Lab
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Welcome to The Lab, a compilation of Valve’s room-scale VR experiments set in a pocket universe within Aperture Science. Fix a robot, defend a castle, adopt a mechanical dog, and more. Still not sold? It’s free!
Narrow it down
Head-to-head comparisons
More from Facepunch Studios
Other recommendable Steam games by Facepunch Studios, ranked by review count so the studio's hits land first.
Garry's Mod
WHY THIS
Shares an immersive mood with Rust.
Another title from Facepunch Studios, the studio behind Rust. Shares Indie with Rust.
Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play.
s&box
WHY THIS
Another title from Facepunch Studios, the studio behind Rust. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Our spiritual successor to Garry's Mod, this is a game creation platform built on the Source 2 engine. Play, create, and share games, explore community creations, and experience endless sandbox fun with powerful modern tools.
Plays great on Steam Deck
Valve-Verified or Playable picks from the similar pool — ready to go on Deck out of the box.
No Man's Sky
WHY THIS
Shares base building and an immersive mood with Rust.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Adventure with Rust.
No Man's Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe.
Satisfactory
WHY THIS
Shares base building and an immersive mood with Rust.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Indie and Adventure with Rust.
Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven!
Don't Starve Together
WHY THIS
Shares resource scarcity, base building and a stressful mood with Rust.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.
Terraria
WHY THIS
Shares an immersive mood with Rust.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Rust.
Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game. Four Pack also available!
Frequently asked about Rust
- Does Rust work on Steam Deck?
- Rust is currently rated Unsupported on Steam Deck. It may not launch or may have significant issues that block normal play.
- How much does Rust cost?
- Rust is listed on Steam at 19.99 USD (current store price; Steam sales may reduce this temporarily).
- Does Rust have multiplayer or co-op?
- Yes — Rust supports multi-player play according to its Steam store listing (Multi-player, Cross-Platform Multiplayer, Online PvP).
- What games are most similar to Rust?
- Based on Steam play patterns and shared genres/tags, the games most often recommended alongside Rust are No Man's Sky, Satisfactory, Out of Reach.
- Who developed Rust?
- Rust was developed by Facepunch Studios.
imho.run ranks Steam game alternatives using a mix of collaborative filtering (ALS / iALS / EASE / LightGCN), content scoring over genres, categories, Steam tags, developers, and publishers, plus AI-extracted vibes mined from review text. The page above is generated in seed mode anchored on Rust.
For library-aware picks tuned to your specific taste, sign in with Steam on the home page.