[ DevBlog ] Crossout Tales: Rust & Dust 2026

Discussion
1

Crossout Tales: Rust & Dust

Hello, survivors!

Since January, we have been hinting at something new coming soon to the Wasteland on various platforms. Let’s not beat around the bush anymore, because the time has come to reveal everything. Wade recently found an unidentified archive containing information about another version of the Wasteland. A place where there are no hovers nor many other modules and weapons. A place dripping with the atmosphere of true post-apocalypse. A place where the grass may even be greener, but that’s a matter of taste.

It is a different Wasteland. It’s a separate game within Crossout with its own levelling system, modified technology tree, different workbench production times, and the risk of losing some of the parts from your storage if they are destroyed in battle. Wait, is this real? Yes. Let Wade himself tell you more about his discovery. Welcome to the new game format. Crossout Tales: Rust & Dust!

We remind you that all the new features described in the “Developer blog” are not final and may be changed before they are introduced into the game or may not make it into the game at all. This also applies to all visual materials.

I don’t get it. Welcome where?

My dear meatbags survivors! Crossout Tales: Rust & Dust isn’t just some week-long brawl. It’s a whole new game within a game, but alas, it won’t last forever. I can’t just let you have this valuable archive. Who knows what other universes are buried in its depths? Who knows what the future holds…

So here’s the deal. Crossout Tales: Rust & Dust is a big temporary event that will keep us all busy for about three months. You don’t need to download another Crossout to play it. I’ve got everything covered, trust me. You can easily transition to another reality from the Garage by clicking on the colorful banner. You’ll know which one it is. It’s very noticeable. Yes, it’s like that ON PURPOSE. I am an honest guy.

The fun starts as soon as you enter the other version of the game. I can’t wait!

Different progression

In this event, all survivors will start from scratch. Yes, once again you will find yourself with empty storage, no levels, and no money. Finally, those two guys who always complain in the comments about the lack of space in the storage will calm down, right? Level playing field. Of course, progressing in the new mode will be much faster than in the main game.

The leveling itself is centered around a special event with a reward scale unique to this mode. It has many cool rewards: a new currency used only in this mode, a “loaf” (not bread), and other useful stuff.

When playing Crossout Tales: Rust & Dust, you can progress not only the challenges within the mode but also the challenges from the main game (if their conditions are met). You level up in both modes at once. But it won’t work the other way around. When playing the main version of the game, you can’t complete the challenges of Rust & Dust.

The new reward scale has items of all kinds. Some are only for the Rust & Dust, some are only for the main game, and some can be obtained in both worlds. By the way, the crown jewel of the reward scale is the new medium legendary cabin “Stronghold”. Yes, the famous “loaf of bread” can now be found in the Wasteland! Rest assured, this valuable asset will be transferred to your storage in the main game at the end of the event. Let’s talk about this iron loaf in more detail.

Legendary medium cabin “Stronghold”

So, I skimmed over the description of the cabin. In short, “Dolores” ate a loaf of bread, and that’s that.

A little technical stuff: an armoured car with this cabin takes 20% more damage. As you deal damage with any weapon, protection increases by 10% increments until the player is destroyed. The bonus stacks up to 10 times, but no more than once every 5.5 seconds. During this delay, damage protection is additionally increased by 15%. I’m telling you, it’s like “Dolores” absorbed a steel loaf of bread, which is sturdy enough to hammer nails with, and that’s how “Stronghold” came to be.

P.S. This cabin will also have a “turquoise” version without the super-duper perk, but the model will be similar. Artisans of the Wasteland will appreciate it.

Different technology tree and crafting

Alright, enough of that nerdy stuff. The break is over. Next, let me tell you about the boom sticks. In this universe, many familiar weapons, movement parts, or modules have ceased to exist to make the gaming experience feel like a real post-apocalypse.

Hovers and all the sci-fi modules and weapons have disappeared. Only things made of Wasteland trash and your engineering skills remain. So that no fancy gadgets can distract you from the crazy battles. The only available movement parts are wheels, tracks, and one auger. The “Meat Grinder” will always be a part of the real post-apocalypse.

Producing parts on the workbench in the new mode is instantaneous. Why? It will become clear a little later in my story.

By the way, there are no legendary or relic parts (any at all) in this mode either. Now epic rarity rules everything. But where there is epic, there is risk.

Different battles

So, about the instantaneous production of parts… I heard that Crossout used to be tougher. So much so that parts disappeared from the storage when they were lost in battle. My data archive shows the information in a rather distorted way, but I’m sure I understood everything “correctly”.

Parts below epic rarity cannot be lost, but if you decide to bring a powerful epic into battle… Well, what can I say, good luck! If an epic part is destroyed in battle, it disappears from the storage and must be crafted again. Crossout: Hardcore, indeed.

Actually, battles in Crossout Tales: Rust & Dust should be quite different from how they are now. After all, the different balance of power in modules and weapons is designed for that very purpose. I hope.

So, survivors, did old Wade manage to pique your interest? We really hope so. The text turned out to be long enough, anyway. We could go on and on about the details, but it’s better to check out Crossout Tales: Rust & Dust during a livestream. It will take place tomorrow, and the mode itself will be released on March 19.

That’s all for today. See you in future entries and other news articles. Good luck in battle!

2 Likes
2

The good thing i see is that they tried to implement events like the steel hunter in WoT. Instead of BPs or event passes which are boring, we got a seperate mode with activities, which is good.

The bad thing i see is how they’re trying to hop on extraction hype train. First we get SW (which is a really bad game in extraction shooter aspect… no balancing based on loadout price, no insurance mechanic, no guaranteed drops mechanic, grinding blueprints is way too long), then we get the same thing but in Crossout.

3

:unamused:
yeaaaaah i dont think i like hearing that…

2 Likes
4

I really have zero interest in playing a secondary sandbox mode where I start from 0 again.

1 Like
5

I am not sure what audience or player base they are trying to capture. Is it for beginning players who don’t have much to begin with.

Maybe the whales who have everything and need to have a Legendary Medium Cabin for there storage.

Shrug… I just don’t get it.

Maybe another survivor can give me insight why this proposed Rust and Dust is good?

-MC-

1 Like
6

i mean it wouldnt be so bad if you didnt permanently lose your epic weapons if you lost…

1 Like
7

It’s not like you have to make epics.

The concept of playing the game for so long and just starting over just doesn’t do it for me. I can already play a lower ps if I want to. So maybe they just didn’t describe it well. I don’t really care about the hover and scifi issue either so the lack of that doesn’t really matter to me either.

If they did something similar for awakening mode and gave it an in mode crafting/building system and story progression around gaining the parts. That might interest me more. I.e. not just a duplicate sandbox mode with some item swapping.

1 Like
8

play it n say it first…
then we all can come to a conclusion… :thinking:

1 Like
9

This one reddit comment got me:

image

2 Likes
10

i find it so sad and pathetic that people are actually excited for this. they do know it only lasts 3 months right?
the problem i see here is the crossout team themselves, they say they want to do stuff like this but they also limit what you can have and what you can make in it. i see a massive issue with this already. losing your weapons permanently is going to suck. epic weapons are lost permanently if destroyed and thats just not right with me. even if you get more resources its so dumb. whats stopping people from ganking you? whats stopping clans from coming in and ganging up on you, bullying you, trolling you, etc? nothing.
this mode is going to suck. plus there IS a high chance to this might be a paid event. given the devs track records i have a feeling that they are going to charge people for it.
i just dont feel like this event is going to be a good one.

2 Likes
11

We don’t know enough yet about this minigame, so praise or criticizm is kinda premature.

I would hope that spending real money to enjoy this event is not the intention (but hey, who knows). I sure wouldn’t recommend sinking money into a temporary event.

As far as losing stuff, unless I read too quickly, I would assume that you can only lose stuff from your temporary ministorage in this minigame; that your regular game items would not be impacted. The devs know that if people lost stuff ITRG (“In The Real Game”) because of this event, the rage meter would be off the chart and the membership would plummet.

Give it a chance, see what happens. Might not be a horrid ordeal, might even be fun, if it seems more realistic without the wonder weapons. I’d expect some breakage during the first week, so take snapshots of all your storage stuff just in case.

1 Like
12

If I stopped buying battle passes I wouldn’t have a lot of extra random upgraded parts laying around that I can’t easily un-upgrade to sell. That would solve my storage issue too you know… They could just make the upgrades removeable (We paid to get them let us just remove and apply them like skins.) Problem fixed with a lot less coding then making a entirely new system of progression. Or just make upgraded items no longer take up storage space. That would even makes the upgrade events and mini passes more valuable and viable.

It will only remain leveled at the start of the event. If players are able to upgrade items it will be just as unlevel as the main one is fairly fast. The big complaint I see people say is they can’t compete with people that have fully upgraded builds and that’s mostly a new player issue. The quick way to fix this would be at looking at giving upgrades a PS increase and tighten up the matchmaker which seams to have given up working.

I’m happy they are excited. They probably know.

This is something I would legitimately be concerned about. I could see this behavior exacerbated via loosing the epic parts too.

They’re going to rage about losing them even if it is just the parallel game dimension. It’s not like we have the least toxic player base.

I’ll probably look at it just not sure if I’ll bother playing it. Like I said before I can already play a lower ps if I really wanted to.

13

You lose everything at the end of the event anyway, correct?

14

Finally, three months like Crossout should be… used to be
A cool epic weapon would be a MG-42
Special MG-34, rare Thompson, we could also have anti tank rifles…
we could have Punt guns as canons and old howitzers of small calibre
SGs…we could have blunderbusses instead of Junk family SG.
Instead of Reaper, we could have it’s grandfather, the OG Gatling gun,
Ak-47s, double barrel hunting shotguns.
Aspect MG, if we squint the eyes it’s close to a WWI MG.
Weapons easy to maintain in a hostile environment ( mud, humidity )and so on
What else could it be?
Instead of incinerators, we could have cocktail Molotov’s launchers .
For the arty guys we could have mortars
I’m in

Cool, very cool… i love it.
Steel, grease and lead

No scy fy BS.

Now let’s see if it will be everything they promise

1 Like
15

Why?

I’m personally excited because there wasn’t anything on that scale. We either get BP / EPs, or one-week operations. To add insult to injury: event pass names always make me thing there would be a cool gamemode tied to them, ESPECIALLY how these are advertised.
image

Like. Tell me i’m not the only one who reads these descriptions and assume there’s some sort of a gamemode. But no. Same ol’ money sucking battlepass…

And there is when i’m excited since we got AN ACTUAL GAMEMODE with hours upon hours of playtime and rewards for it. Last time something like this was happening is arena (precursor of CC/BfU) and the steel championship (football).
My final rating would depend on how much they monetize this gamemode. But for now things are looking pretty good.

16

looks to be that way. its only temporary so i assume once the events over everything goes poof.
i just dont see anything staying. we never had this type of event before… at least from my knowledge… so its safe to assume once the events done you lose everything you acquired in that secondary world / event.

:face_with_raised_eyebrow:
you uh… you been drinking a little bit there bud? drinking a little to much of the brewskies? everything ok over there with you?

points at the battlepasses
those have been 3 - 4 months before.
even if its for 3 months thats the problem right there, its for THREE MONTHS, and i assume you lose everything you acquired after the event is over. then its back to plain crossout again. they didnt really do anything exciting… and knowing how bad and bland they make events i have to assume that this is going to be the exact same as all the other events before that. alot of these events are bare bones. so am i to assume this wont be the same?

i dont, because i know what to expect from crossout, absolutely nothing.

wow thats a name i havent herd in a very long time. how long has it been since we seen this?

if it turns out good ill admit it. however with this games track record id say im pretty on point.

17

Ever since I started playing and lurking the original forum, there have been lots of people complaining that hovers and all the sci fi stuff ruined the game. So many of the loudest forum members insist things were better in the earliest days of the game.

Personally, while I also tend towards the Mad Max aspects of the game, I like that it’s mixed up with the Star Wars stuff.

I’m curious about this experiment though, and will definitely give it a try.

As far as the losing weapons thing and starting from scratch, I think that’s a way to address the complaints about whales and P2W mechanics. The idea is that our success in this mode will not be as dependent on what parts we have, and it will be hard to accumulate a big collection of high powered items, making it more about skill.

Unfortunately I fear we don’t have a big enough playerbase to make an experiment like this work.

18

You do stuff in this event, you level up, you get things for your maingame account too.

It’s basically like the Steel Hunter in WoT (or whatever it’s called in the english localisation).

This is why i’m excited. This is a step in the right direction - instead of just grinding the same old battle passes, you get a unique experience. They might improve on this concept if it’s successful enough.

1 Like
19

question is… is this a free event or something you need to pay for?

1 Like
20

From reading the description, all you have to do is click on it in your garage. It doesn’t say anything about having to buy anything. If it was “pay up to play it”, I’d imagine that would knock out so most players, that the ones who did pay up, would have nobody to play against.