Rust now has hot air balloons and missiles that can shoot them down

Rust, the survival game where you start by banging a rock against a tree and then progress to crafting automatic weapons, has opened up a new mode of travel that lets you take to the skies: hot air balloons. You'll find them scattered around the map, and once they're fueled you can fly wherever the wind carries you. Balloons should hold about four or five passengers, making them the ideal way to soar above the defenses of a fort you'd like to raid.

But every Sherlock has his Moriarty, and you may find your balloon shot down thanks to the inclusion of surface-to-air missiles, which also arrived in the Rust update. You can purchase a deployable SAM site from scientist outposts for 500 scrap and once stocked with ammo it'll automatically target any nearby balloons.

Note: this includes your own balloon. SAMs aren't psychic. They just love killing balloons, so they'll shoot yours down too. So remember to either unload the SAM site before you launch, or just don't fly anywhere near your own fort.

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Latest in Adventure
Inside
Limbo and Inside studio demands compensation from co-founder Dino Patti for alleged 'unauthorized use of Playdead's trademarks and copyrighted works'
Two characters sitting on a bench talking
Wanderstop review
Zoe showing off in front of Mio
Split Fiction review
Rusty Rabbit chomping a carrot like a cigar
Rusty Rabbit turns Yakuza's Kazuma Kiryu into a fluffy bunny
Pathologic 3 screenshot
Get ready to get weird in Pathologic 3: Quarantine, a free 'prologue chapter' about a young doctor looking for immortality in the world's most miserable town
A young woman's face bathed in light
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 review
Latest in News
Erenshor - A player and two simulated MMO party members stand on a plateau in front of a yellow landscape
This RuneScape-looking 'simulated MMORPG' has all the nostalgia without the drama because all the other 'players' are NPCs
Pirate Bay co-founder Carl Lundstrom
Pirate Bay co-founder and far-right politician found dead after plane crash
Sunset in the desert in Hello Sunshine
Hello Sunshine is a desert survival sandbox where you live in the literal shadow of the colossus
Roblox CEO David Baszucki.
'Don't let your kids be on Roblox', Roblox CEO tells parents, before comparing himself to Walt Disney and declaring the platform 'the future of communication'
Titus in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 reveal promo image
Praise be to the Omnissiah! Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 is officially in development
Jensen Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks while holding the company's new GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards and a Thor Blackwell robotics processor during the 2025 CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. Huang announced a raft of new chips, software and services, aiming to stay at the forefront of artificial intelligence computing. Photographer: Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Group allegedly trying to smuggle Nvidia Blackwell chips stare down bail set at over $1 million