Double Eleven had been in talks with Facepunch since 2016 about the idea of creating this console version, and the teams knew early on that the two games would “need to be in separate universes given that the PC edition can expand as it needed to, and performance would be maintained so long as people continued to upgrade their hardware, while consoles on the other hand have finite resources that need to be more closely managed.”

Performance was the team’s “biggest and most demanding challenge” and Double Eleven needed to “rip apart and rewrite major engine subsystems within Unity” to get it up to standards.

Load times were also a big issue, and the team explained how initial load times took up to 45 minutes to read and decompress the procedural map and its assets into memory. By implementing a new bootstrap system that would allow for the loading of multiple Unity scenes and asset bundles simultaneously, the game now loads “in around one minute give or take.”

The team also decided to pick a point in Facepunch’s code base that served as a good foundation, and decided it would rebuild some of the more advanced features once a solid base on which to build was established.

This means that Rust Console Edition will follow its own update roadmap that differs from the PC version that will “provide an optimal player experience while gradually introducing players to the vast amount of game play and content that makes Rust an incredible experience.”

While Double Eleven isn’t quite ready to reveal the roadmap, the studio promises some of it will be shown closer to the release of the game in May.

The developer did reveal that Rust Console Edition will be getting a Deluxe and Ultimate Edition which include Beta access in April 2021, 3-days early access, and more.

For more on Rust, check out why everyone was playing Rust again earlier this year and read our review of the game from 2018.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.