Halloween is here!

12:00am EST - The Rust Halloween event goes live today with a mandatory patch at expected at 2pm EST (7pm BST).

Our update preview stream goes live at 1pm EST. Follow @Rustafied for news throughout the day.

Halloween event overview

Similar to other holiday events in Rust, the 2022 Halloween Event features a variety of seasonal items, loot, events in the game, the Frankenstein’s pets from last year, and some nifty new portals for this year! This goes live via a mandatory patch today at 2pm EST, it’ll be active on servers till the next forced wipe on November 3rd.

Portals

New for Halloween this year, portals! Added to staging just yesterday, details are still coming to light about this spooky new feature. Here is what we’re seeing so far:

Portals now spawn randomly around the map and last a period of time before they collapse. When you walk though a portal, you’re teleported to a small dungeon - which is basically a small cave system. These dungeons are either procedural or there are at least over 15 variants. In the dungeon you’ll find loot and scarecrow NPC’s to kill. You can exit the dungeon by passing back through the portal you came through.

Here are some examples of we found in dungeons:

• 5 NPC Scarecrows - 1 Normal Crate and 1 Military Crate 

• 3 NPC Scarecrows - 2 Military Crates

• 4 NPC Scarecrows - 1 Normal Crate and 1 Military Crate 

• 5 NPC Scarecrows - 3 Normal Crates 

• 2 NPC Scarecrows - 1 Normal Crate and 3 Military Crates

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Frankenstein pets

First appearing last year, Frankenstein pets make a comeback for the duration of the event.

Overview
Frankenstein pets are assembled from 3 parts and put together on the new Frankenstein table. You can find Frankenstein parts in the Mummy and Scarecrow NPC’s around the map. There are 3 types of Frankenstein: light, medium, and heavy. Once you have any 3 parts, you can combine them on a Frankenstein table to bring your pet to life. You can then give your pet different directives.

Frankenstein table
A default blueprint, the Frankenstein table is a base requirement for building your pet. At 200 metal frags, it’s pretty easy to craft. Simply craft it, place it, then add the Frankenstein parts. Once the parts are added, hold ‘e’ on the table and select ‘Wake Frankenstein’.

Blueprint
Default

Crafting
200 metal frags

Workbench
Level 1 required

Craft time
15 seconds

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Types of Frankenstein
As mentioned above, there are 3 types of Frankenstein pets: light, medium, and heavy. They each have their own attributes. For example, the light Frankenstein moves fast but has less health. The heavy has more health but moves slower. 

There are 3 parts for each type. All parts are interchangeable (meaning you can have light legs, a medium torso, and a heavy head).

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Controlling your pet
A new radial menu has been added for when you hold ‘p’ while looking at a pet (p for pet, get it?). This menu allows you to select what you’d like your pet to do. Here is a summary of each command:

Idle
Pet does nothing

Follow
Pet will follow you around

Guard
Pet will attack anything that attacks you

Assist
Pet will attack anything you attack

Move
Pet will move to where you are looking

Destroy
Pet is instantly killed

Combat
Pet will attack anything you attack, It will attack anything that attacks you, It will defend itself if attacked

Other things of note

• Frankenstein parts are found on mummies / scarecrows around the map

• You can only have one pet at a time

• Pets will only travel a max of 100m

• The Frankenstein table doesn't require power

• You can see your pets health on bottom right

• Pets placement is shown on map

Hockey mask

Fresh in game, a reskin of the metal face mask: the Hockey Mask. This will likely be available for purchase on the item store once the update is live.

Cultist Deer Torch

Also new in game, a cultish spin on the classic torch: the Cultist Deer Torch. This will likely be available for purchase on the item store once the update hits.

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Baseball bat

Another new addition to the game, a Baseball bat. Clone of the mace, it seems damage for both has been buffed as it can now one hit blue barrels. Likely found on the item store, too.

Carvable pumpkins

Also making a comeback from last years Halloween event, carvable pumpkins available. They are pretty straightforward - simply paint on them like a sign, add some wood, and light them up!

Like last year, they will likely be found on the item store.

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Spooky Scarecrows and Mummies

The roaming, murdering NPC’s from previous Halloweens are back! This year Scarecrows and Mummies wander the map, looking for fresh Newmans to feast upon. They’ll run after you with a Chainsaw or Sickle and try to kill you if they see you, so watch out!

Details

HP
200

How many on map?
~ 40 on a default map

Weapons used
Chainsaw
Sickle
Beancans
Machetes

Example loot dropped
Fuse
Guitar
Metal Blades (2x)
Flashing Light
Pitchfork
Corn
Sickle
Rope
SAR Body
F1 Grenades (3x)

Trick or Treat event

Similar to the Egg hunt from the Easter event, Trick or Treating is back! About once every other in game day you’ll see a countdown and notice pops up saying “Trick or Treat Starts in: 14 seconds”. 

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Once it starts, Halloween Candy will spawn around each player. Race to pick up as much as you can within 3 minutes. 

Now what do you do with all this candy? Well, like any normal trick-or-treater, you can just shove it all in your gullet till your stomach can’t take any more. You can also upgrade it to higher tiers of candy (loot). See below for more details on each tier.

Oh, and the top three people to get the most candy, get prizes…

Prizes

1st

3 Medium Loot Bags

2nd

1 Medium Loot Bag

3rd

1 Small Loot Bag

Halloween Loot Upgrades

Lowest common denominator on the treat loot ladder, Halloween Candy - which stacks to 10 - can be eaten (healing +1, calories +25) or upgraded to a Small Loot Bag (10 to upgrade). 

From there, you can continue to upgrade. Here’s a low down of each loot bag type and some loot examples you can find:

Small Loot Bag

Stacks to
10

Sample Loot
4 Chocolate Bars
Pumpkin bucket
Compound bow +10 arrows ~48 frags
Hunting bow + 5 arrows Scarecrow Wrap

Upgrade to Medium
10

Medium Loot Bag

Stacks to
10

Sample Loot
2.5k stones
Revolver + 20 ammo
Double Barrel + 5 buck shot Chainsaw + 22 low grade Spider Webs
Graveyard fence

Upgrade to Large
10

Large Loot Bag

Stacks to
10

Sample Loot
MP5A4 + 30 ammo
M249 + 50 ammo
LR300 + 20 ammo
M39 + 50 ammo
5 IC + 3 HV Rockets
Grenade Launcher

Upgrade
N/A

Pumpkin Bucket

This handy bucket found in Small Loot Bags allows you to pick up candy quicker during the Trick or Treat event using left click. You can also use right click to throw candy at people - it does about 20hp damage.

Scarecrow Wrap

The Scarecrow Wrap - found in Small Loot Bags - will give you extra candy vision when applied (basically allows you to see the candy from farther away).

Pickup-able resources

You’ll notice a change to the resources you can pick up off the ground with this update. Wood, stone, and ore pickups are now spooky looking! You can even pick up bones!

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Other stuff

There are a couple other changes coming with the patch today. Here is a summary of what else is in store:

• Event volume slider added to options menu

• Added Turn On and Turn Off inputs to the strobe light and fog machine (toggle inputs are unchanged)

• Fixed flashlights & laser attachments not working in turrets

• Volume & voice limiting tweaks for inventory UI sounds

• Fixed missing colliders when modular car rear seats are placed at the front of the vehicle

• Add FPS.limitInMenu convar that limits the game to 60fps when in the menu and not connected to a server

• Add global.hideinteracttextwhileads, makes the interaction text (eg. "Open Door") mostly transparent and moves it down the screen to keep it out of the way of the crosshair while in ADS

• Fix deployed boom boxes throwing errors during demo playback

Other development news

We’ll be back next Thursday with a full rundown of what you can expect in the November update.  In the meantime, here are some highlights of what’s been going on in development:

• Fixed flashlights & laser attachments not working in turrets

• Drag attachments directly onto weapons to swap them

• Block equipping broken attachments onto weapons

• Right click attachments onto held weapon

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