Rust developer reveals "mind-map" of future plans

Some developers like to lay out their plan for the future of their games in "roadmaps" which break down the path they intend to take from point A to point B. Garry Newman of Facepunch Studios is not one of those developers, but people keep bugging him about what's coming next. So, as an alternative, he's put together what he calls a "mind-map" for Rust that details his ideas without placing undue pressure on the studio.

"I don’t want us to feel tied down to features and timescale," Newman wrote in the most recent devblog. "We’re hobbyists at heart—we’re not a game factory—we don’t need that kind of pressure."

The mind-map, viewable here, is broken down into four basic categories—Priority, Strategies, Future Ideas, and Bugs—each of which branches off into multiple levels of increasing detail. The first priority on the list, for instance, (but not necessarily the number one priority) is Working Blueprints, which includes Blueprint Distribution, Saving/loading, and Limits; Blueprint Distribution devolves further into Radtown Monuments and Item Re-spawing, while Limits branches to Store Unlocked Blueprints, Send Player Unlocked Blueprints, and Limit Item Creation Via Blueprints.

There's much more to it than just that—it's a big document with a lot of ideas on it. But it shouldn't be seen as "ten tablets of stone handed down from God," as Newman put it. "It's a rough, scatterbrain plan of our intentions and direction. Like everything we do, it changes and evolves."

Facepunch recently released a significant update to Rust that shifted its focus from building to exploration.