Rust adds boats, improves forests, deploys choppers

Sandbox murderthon Rust has added driveable motorboats in its latest update, elevating it to the highest class of game: one where you and your pals can pootle around a giant world singing songs until hubris causes a crash. The update's also good news for landlubbers who'd prefer to lead a woodland hike, as it improves and expands forests. I'm sure those are the only big changes in this patch and there's nothing to murder each other over, such as valuable supply crates dropped by new NPC transport helicopters - nothing like that.

Boats! Now spawning around the island are rowboats with outboard engines, which use Low Grade Fuel.They seat four players, which is certainly enough for a singalong. If pleasureboating isn't enough, you can also use these to putt out and harvest the offshore floating junk piles also added in this update. But if you're not trying to ramp boats over skerries, I don't understand you at all.

Forests! This update revamps our leafy friends with a second type of forest, a more deciduous type with birches and beeches to contrast with the pine-y old ones. Forests are denser now too and can appear in more places, including along the edges of lakes. Ah, what bliss! I certainly hope no

Ah, hell.

That's the CH-47 Chinook, a transport helicopter which appears in a new server event. This behaves differently to the attack helicopter already patrolling the island every few hours. The Chinook will spawn offshore, choose and head to a drop zone on the island, try to murder nearby players, then drop a locked supply crate. These crates are marked on every player's map and unlocking them takes a while, waiting for a computer system's timer to tick down, so you might need to fight to secure them.

The update also improves hair, fixes a small stutter with gunfights, adds a few new bits on Hapis Island, and more. Hit the patch notes for full details.

Rust is now out of early access, officially launched in February. We sent young Matthew to the murder island to write a Rust review, the poor dear. Facepunch Studios aren't done with it yet, mind. See Rust's development roadmap for more on their plans.