Rust's latest update, "The Crafting Update," significantly expands crafting possibilities. A new culinary workbench lets players grill chicken legs and even enjoy them with Siberian vodka, using specific recipes to create stat-boosting meals. Properly tending to chickens and chicks in new coops is crucial; each chick requires attention to hunger, thirst, love, and sunlight to survive. Chicken meat spoils unless refrigerated, adding a new layer of resource management with visible expiration timers on food.

Sweeten your survival experience by harvesting honeycombs from wild beehives. However, these bees are aggressive, requiring protective suits, water, or flamethrowers for safe extraction and relocation to player-built hives. A new weapon, the Bee Grenade, unleashes swarms of angry bees—a potent, albeit messy, tool.

The engineering workbench has undergone a complete overhaul, introducing separate tech trees for plumbing and electricity. This allows for the creation of automated systems and even entire factories. Finally, premium servers are now available, exclusively for players with a Rust inventory valued at $15 or more. This aims to improve gameplay by filtering out cheaters and disruptive players.