Howdy, Pioneers, A quick one from the frontier. First, a proper thank you to everyone already out on the frontier: over 400 of you now, between the Trail Guides from our Discord community and the first 350 invited from Steam. It has been a real pleasure watching so many of you take your first steps out there, sharing feedback, reporting bugs, and helping us make this a better game. It has gone…
Howdy, Pioneers, Go check your email. Today we sent Playtest invitations to the first 350 players who signed up for the Red Rust Pioneers Playtest on Steam. If you put your name forward, there may be an invitation sitting in your inbox right now. Go and look. We'll wait. How we got here For the last two months we've been running a closed playtest with Pioneers from our Discord community. More t…
Howdy, Pioneers, Right now, while you’re reading this, there are Pioneers out on the frontier. Not in a trailer. Not in a mock-up. Real players are playing Red Rust Pioneers today, chopping wood, boiling water, building camps, getting into trouble, and dying in ways we absolutely did not design for. That’s why it has been a little while since we last checked in. Playtesting is underway, and the…
Howdy, Pioneers, Let's get straight to the headline. Playtests are coming. Yes, actual playtests. We know a lot of you folks have been waiting to hear those words, and we're very excited to finally say them. By the end of this month, we plan to open playtest registration here on Steam, followed by several rounds of testing, and our Discord community will be the first place to hear how it will a…
Howdy, Pioneers, This is a special one. One year ago today, we launched the Red Rust Pioneers store page and shared our announcement trailer with the world. We had an idea for a game we believed in, a small team with a lot of ambition, and absolutely no idea how many of you would want to come along for the ride. It turns out, quite a few of you did. To every one of you who has wishlisted the ga…
Howdy, Pioneers, Spring's in the air and the team's been heads down on something we've wanted to talk about for a while. This month we're pulling back the curtain on a system that touches nearly every part of the Red Rust Pioneers survival experience, and we think it's going to change the way you think about life on the frontier. Let's dig in. The Equilibrium Engine One of the things we care mo…
Howdy, Pioneers, Spring has sprung out here on the frontier, and the valley is lookin' better than ever. We've been putting in some serious work over the past few weeks, and this month we're excited to pull back the curtain on some big changes happening under the hood, and right there on the surface where you can see them. Let's get into it. A New Engine Under the Hood We have some news we've b…
Howdy Pioneers, and welcome to our first development update of 2026. January’s was another busy month on the trail, even if we’ve been keepin’ a few cards close to our chest. Trail Guides and Playtesting In January, we quietly released our first external test build of Red Rust Pioneers to a small group of players from our Discord community, known as the Trail Guides. These fine folks have been…
Howdy, Pioneers, It’s been another busy month on the trail, and we’ve got plenty to share before the year wraps up. Artisan Craft Fair Earlier in November, we had the chance to visit an artisan craft fair, full of skilled folks who build museum-quality replicas from all sorts of historical periods. It gave us a rare opportunity to get hands-on with a Kentucky Long Rifle, as well as meet wheelwr…
Howdy, Pioneers, Another month’s flown by faster than a runaway wagon, and would you look at that, it’s Halloween already! Now, if there’s one thing folks love when the nights draw in, it’s a good ghost story told around a cracklin’ campfire. Heck, my grandma used to spin yarns about a spectral locomotive that would rocket past the farm where she grew up... wait a second, that‘s from Ghostbuste…
Howdy, Pioneers, It’s high time we shared another update from the trail - and boy, have we got some exciting news from the Rusty Robot team! We’ve been hard at work shaping Red Rust Pioneers with the help of your feedback, and it’s been a real pleasure building this game together with such a fine community. Let’s dive right in. 3rd Person Camera A fair few of y’all mentioned that the first-pers…
Howdy, Pioneers, It’s August already! How in tarnation did that happen? Anyhow, I just wanted to drop y’all a little development update from me and the whole Rusty Robot team. Development Update Overlook Lake We’re still beaverin’ away on Overlook Lake, focusing on dressin’ and optimizin’ the environment, gettin’ things lookin’ cleaner than a preacher on Sunday. There’s a whole lot we’d love to…
Howdy there, Pioneers! First off, we just wanna tip our hats and say a big ol’ thank ya for the overwhelming response to our announcement trailer. Truth be told, we couldn’t be happier to see how many of y’all are just as fired up to play Red Rust Pioneers as we are to bring it to life. If you haven’t already, we’d be mighty grateful if you could wishlist and follow Red Rust Pioneers right here…
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Announcements are the developer’s own posts to the game’s Steam news feed: updates and their patch notes, in-game events, releases and sales. The important ones are marked on the players chart.