The post is a the latest iteration of the Xbox Excellence Awards, which was created last year to celebrate how players engaged with various releases on Xbox. The Store Rating category lists 2025 games with the best ratings on the Microsoft Store, with an added requirement of the title having at least 500 ratings. Player Engagements is about the average number of hours spent on a game by each player within the first six weeks of a game’s release. Daily Active Users celebrates titles, expansions or updates with the highest single-day active users throughout the year. And finally Units Sold is fairly self-explanatory.

Going down the lists, you’ll find many of the biggest releases of the year, from ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6, as well as award-winning RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Indie titles have also been well-represented, with games like Crime Scene Cleaner and Satisfactory making it into the lists. There also doesn’t seem to have been a singular genre to dominate the lists, since everything from sports games like EA Sports Madden NFL 26, to fantasy adventure life sims like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and even fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics are well represented.

Curiously, none of the games was present in all four of the categories. At most, we got to see titles like Borderlands 4 being able to make it on to three of them: Player Engagement, Daily Active Users and Units Sold. Even ARC Raiders, which has seen quite a bit of success, is only on the Units Sold and Daily Active Users lists.

Microsoft has also emphasized that the lists represent a diverse collection of games developed by studios of varying sizes. All in all, it represents 48 unique developers based out of 13 countries, with 24 publishers having had a hand in their release. 19 of the games were self-published. “Taken as a whole, it’s an encapsulation of development on Xbox – we want gaming to reach you wherever you are, and for the teams making those games to find you from wherever they are,” wrote the company.

Full list of games:

Store Rating:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Crime Scene Cleaner
• Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dreamcore
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Lies of P: Overture
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Little Nightmares III
• Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
• Minami Lane
• Mullet MadJack
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 4
• Satisfactory
• Silent Hill 2
• Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Player Engagement:

• Borderlands 4
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Farm Together 2
• Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
• Helldivers 2
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• NHL 26
• Rust
• Satisfactory
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Daily Active Users:

• Arc Raiders
• Avowed
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 5
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grounded 2
• Helldivers 2
• Marvel Rivals
• Minecraft
• NBA 2K26
• Rematch
• Roblox
• Rocket League
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Units Sold:

• Arc Raiders
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• EA Sports Madden NFL 26
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Helldivers 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• PGA Tour 2K25
• Ready or Not
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• WWE 2K25

“Rust going strength to strength!” said McFarlane, celebrating the game’s latest milestone. “We just beat our all-time CCU, beating Covid and all other significant events.”

McFarlane goes on to celebrate the accomplishment by thanking the game’s players for their support.

“For the past several months, we’ve been hitting new monthly records, this was a huge one we were unsure if we’d ever beat, not unless there was another global pandemic,” said McFarlane. “Huge thanks to everyone supporting Rust. The team have worked tirelessly for the past 11 years on Rust. 2026 will be no different, lots of great things coming.”

Shortly after McFarlane’s post, SteamDB revealed that the game had reached even further heights, garnering 262,284 peak concurrent players. This is the first time the game has seen such player numers since its original early access release.

McFarlane has revealed some more details about Rust throughout 2024, including the fact that the game had more than 5.5 million unique players, with over 40 million hours played across over 325 million game sessions.

Among the updates gotten by Rust over 2024 were the addition of new vehicles like bicycles and motorbikes, a complete revamp of the game’s world map that added new points of interest, the addition of backpacks as new equipment, and much more, including new weapons and quality of life features.

Rust going strength to strength! we just beat our all-time CCU, beating covid and all other significant events.

For the past several months, we’ve been hitting new monthly records, this was a huge one we were unsure if we’d ever beat, not unless there was another global… pic.twitter.com/8U0YD5b8Ez

— Alistair McFarlane (@Alistair_McF) January 2, 2025

Rust has reached 260,000 concurrent players on Steam for the first time https://t.co/Ch1ErdTWUI

— SteamDB (@SteamDB) January 2, 2025

The new update, patch 1.31, is live now for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and aims to fix certain issues in the game, such as fixing crashes that occur when moving items up the crafting queue and attack helicopters randomly disappearing mid-combat. Problems with crashes that happened when a banned player tries to join a friend on a server have also been addressed, so players have one less thing to worry about.

The patch notes are fairly brief. You can read the full notes over on the game’s official website, or find them in their entirety below.

RUST CONSOLE EDITION PATCH 1.31

Fixes: 

• Fixed a crash when moving items up the crafting queue
• Fixed a crash that could occur when accessing the Locker while offline
• Fixed a crash when banned players try to join a friend on a server
• Fixed Heavy Scientists getting stuck above the Oil Rig helipad after the Chinook drops them off
• Fixed players being able to shoot through trees with 5.56 rifle ammo
• Fixed an issue that could cause the attack helicopter to disappear when in combat
• Fixed respawned trees sometimes getting harvested in one hit
• Texture updates for the Oil Rig monuments

The March update covers plenty of areas the game needs improvements in, such as visual improvements of the older monuments in the game to bring them in line with its current quality and fielity, and also make it consistent with overall the visual tone. The junkyard magnet crane has also been improved, along with fixes being made for the night vision visuals.

The visual experience of driving vehicles have also been updated, along with some updates to world models, fixes, and general QoL changes, such as slower car decay, large furnaces providing warmth and heat, and more.

The changes are pretty diverse, so it is advisable to read the full update on the game’s Steam page. Down below, you can read the changelog for the March update.

RUST MARCH UPDATE

CHANGELOG

• Added support for tag filtering to the server browser
• Added new in game music
• Added 14 new world models
• Updated loading screen
• Improved arm and body visuals on some vehicles
• Improved 3rd person keycard animation
• Can no longer reskin doors that are open
• Can now switch to and from Ice Rifle skin regardless of ammo or attachments
• Added support for infinitely scrolling MIDI knob convar bindings (see MidiConvar.BindKnobRelative convar)
• Restricted how far a player can alt look up when looking down
• IO Entities can now decay (fixes Water Barrel, Water Catcher, Above Ground Pool, Boom box, CCTV, Connected Speaker, Counter, Disco Floor, Sprinkler, Wind Mill, Car Lift, Paddling Pool, SAM turret, Search Light, Smart Alarm, Solar Panel, Sound Lights, Telephone, Water Pump not decaying when placed outside of a base)
• Removed slot 8 input bind
• Renamed slot 7 input bind to “Holster Item”
• When opening the inventory the currently equipped belt item will automatically be selected
• Modular cars take 4x longer to decay
• Increased local player voice volume when recording a cassette
• Junkyard magnet crane is more stable to drive
• Junkyard magnet crane now uses 80% less fuel when not driving around, and 25% less fuel when not carrying anything on its magnet
• Added Always Sprint to the game options. If enabled, sprint key behaviour is inverted. Player sprints by default, and holding the sprint key will return them to walk speed
• Improved lighting in the Supermarket, Oxum’s Gas Station, Bandit Camp and Launch Site
• Large furnace now provides a small amount of heat and comfort
• Added BuildingDark and BuildingVeryDark volumes for map makers
• Polar bear should no longer migrate to warmer climates
• Horses now trigger pressure pads
• Fixed a case where changing weapon while gesturing would lead to incorrect viewmodels (missing attachments)
• Fixed case where changing clothing while inventory was full would sometimes incorrectly delete an item
• Fixed rounding issue when using Pure Ore Teas leading to an ore node giving 1501-1505 resources (now gives 1500)
• Fixed some out of date radio stations
• Fixed phantom footsteps continuously playing
• Fixed incorrect sfx footsteps playing
• Fixed modular cars using no fuel if they had multiple engine modules and one of those modules had no components
• Fixed magnet crane arm movement speed slowing down at low server framerates
• Fixed magnet crane driver not syncing up visually with the crane itself when rotating the cabin
• Fixed magnet crane magnet hurting the driver if it was positioned as close as possible to the cabin
• Fixed magnet crane treads sometimes animating in the wrong direction when turning
• Fixed the snowy edges of ice lakes also being considered ice by modular cars and snowmobiles
• Fixed the Tomaha suspension snapping to the wrong position when active updates stopped
• Fixed a sleeper loot exploit
• Fixed CCTV clipping exploit
• Fixed BBQ looting exploit
• Fixed pickle jar desc typo
• Fixed Excavator puzzle reset bounds exceeding the prevent building volume, causes player to die when logged out
• Fixed missing passthrough name on DLC industrial wall lights
• Fixed oil hunt mission reward only being 50 scrap
• Arctic base snowmobile no longer comes with 20 low grade fuel
• Arctic base snowmobile garage no longer spawns puzzle loot

As such, the console edition of the game has received a new update, which brings new content with it. Patch 1.30, called Offshore Blowout, adds in a new small oil rig along with a large oil rig, allowing players to work together to raid and gain loot, along with it with a new CH47 event. The building blocked zone around the harbor monument has also been expanded , along with fixes for texture issues, bugs, missing shadows, and more.

You can read the full notes over on the game’s official website, or find them in their entirety below.

In an update published on Steam, Facepunch Studios announced that Rust has sold over 12.4 million copies worldwide since launch- to be precise, it’s sold 12,481,079 copies. All of its DLC packs combined have sold over 1.1 million units, and currently, the game boasts an all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam of an impressive 267,211 players.

Rust first launched into early access in 2013. After significant development changes and improvements over the next few years, it launched in full, exclusively for PC, in 2018. In May of last year, Facepunch Studios also released Rust: Console Edition for PS4 and Xbox One, with development support from Double Eleven. Read our review for the console version through here.

You wouldn’t be blamed for being a bit weary of seeing a game like Rust launch on consoles, especially last gen consoles as this version is a PS4 and Xbox One edition of the game and not specifically optimized for current gen hardware yet. But despite the experience being notably less populated with the options that the PC version currently enjoys, the core of what makes Rust a compelling survival game are present on PS4 at least. That’s the version I was able to play for this review, and outside of the handful of little bugs and glitches you would generally expect from a game like this, Rust runs well and feels about as good as one would expect on the DualShock 4. Using R2 to attack, L2 to aim, square to interact, X to jump all make perfect sense for a game like this and while it never quite feels like a game that really belongs on console, it does more than pass as a totally serviceable console version.

That said, the movement of most actions in Rust, I’ll admit, do come off as a bit clunky, especially at first, but once I got my arms around how movement and interacting with the environment is supposed to feel, it made more sense. Rust isn’t really a game that’s ever been about pinpoint accuracy, but rather, it’s more about giving its players a fun sandbox of tools and ingredients that give you a choice between trying to establish a team of like-minded individuals, going it alone, or just being a griefer extraordinaire. Most players will probably find themselves some sort of mix of the three. Often fights between 2 or 3 rock-welding newbies will devolve into a chaotic mess of everybody running around each other while holding R2 and hoping to come out on top, and if that were in any other game it might feel like a flaw, but in Rust it somehow feels right. I would have liked to have seen a few more things be more console-ized though. For instance, needing to hold down L2 and then press x to simply drop an item could have just as easily been mapped to a simple press of L2. Multiple button interactions on PC makes more sense since you’re playing with a keyboard but on console, the less the button interactions, the better.

"While only time will truly tell on how well Rust lands with console players and how sticky the experience ultimately becomes in a different ecosystem, the good news is that Rust’s console edition does have the fundamentals in place from the PC experience to give it a pretty good shot at garnering a similar fanbase."

Of course, those with rocks and torches will be the least of your worries once you come across Rust’s more advanced players. After playing on any somewhat populated server, it will eventually dawn on you that not everybody playing the game is new to it, as they’ve already acquired far more advanced weaponry and have far more of a handle on how everything works. Your best bet is to probably go it alone for a bit until you can at least get a spear or a bow together and adequately defend yourself. But there’s no shame in going for it with a crouching sneak attack either. Taking out a heavily armed guy might be a bit of a long shot at first, but it is possible and can also be quite a shortcut to getting yourself a competitive edge. Decisions like this are the core of what makes Rust fun – and they are fully intact in this version.

Rust’s console edition, despite being generally well-done, does have a handful of issues that will probably persist through launch that the developer Double Eleven says they are aware of and plan on fixing soon. Some noticeably jittery movement of other players, players walking through certain objects, players being randomly kicked, and some privacy settings in voice chat not being honored are among these issues. You also can’t create your own game just yet, although the option is listed on the main menu so hopefully that comes along soon. I personally rarely noticed examples of the known bugs, but Double Eleven says they are aware of them and they are toiling away on fixes as we speak. An aim-assist is also supposedly in the works, so given a bit of time and more feedback from players, there’s plenty of good reason to suspect Rust will continue to improve from its already generally decent performance.

Given that Rust is an online-focused game, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the game features console cross play. It does not include PC players, but those on their Xbox Ones and PS4s can play together. This is not only a consumer-friendly approach that should be acknowledged for that alone, but should also help quell the fears of anybody holding off on Rust’s console edition because of their concern for multiplayer longevity. Most multiplayer games will inevitably fade away with time, but having both Microsoft’s and Sony’s players together on the same servers, killing each other and looting each other’s crates and barrels should give Rust a reasonably sustainable lifespan on console. While I would have liked to see everybody – including PC – all on the same servers, I think the combination of these two ecosystems will likely pan out to be a reasonable compromise all things considered. After all, the console edition is technically a separate build of the game from the original version, so including PC players on it may not be possible with how everything is currently structured anyway.

"Those who already have experience with Rust know that to really get anywhere in it, you basically need to treat it like a part-time job. It requires dedication and lots of experience if you want to dominate the landscape in any meaningful way."

Those who already have experience with Rust know that to really get anywhere in it, you basically need to treat it like a part-time job. It requires dedication and lots of experience if you want to dominate the landscape in any meaningful way. That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to speed the process up and skirt around some of the intended paths of progression, but generally speaking it’s a game that rewards your time spent very slowly. Given this, it might not ultimately end up being the best fit for most console players.

That said, the slow, grindy, and sometimes frustrating experience that is Rust has indeed made a faithful transition to console from the folks of Double Eleven and Facepunch Studios really knowing what they’re doing here. There are certainly some gripes to be had and some legitimate concerns that may prove more or less significant as time goes on, but thankfully the foundation for this new version of Rust is generally a solid one. Anybody who has been waiting to play the game on their console and knows what they’re getting into has little to fear at this point. It’s an easy recommendation for those who understand what Rust is and are ready for that sort of experience. As a game, it’s still easy to see why Rust is a classic, albeit a niche’ one. The survival elements are top-notch and hardcore. As a console port, I’m curious to see what will come of its new audience over the next couple of years, but so far it is impressively well-optimized and tailored for the controller.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Now, the wildly popular open world survival game is finally coming to consoles as well, and will be hoping to expand its player base even further when it launches for PS4 and Xbox One not long from now. With its release just a few weeks away, here, we’re going to be talking about a few key details you should know about Rust: Console Edition.

Rust has been around for quite a long time. The survival game has had quite a following since it originally launched way back in 2013. The game saw something of a resurgence due to some high profile streamers streaming the title, and it was announced that, after almost a decade on the market, the game would finally be getting a console edition sometime this Spring. Well, now we know exactly when that’ll be.

The Console Edition will release in May, publisher and developer Double Eleven announced in a press release. It will be available as both a digital download as well as a physical one that will include a Day One Edition that will be available at select retailers, Gamestop and Amazon specifically if you’re in the US. The Day One Edition includes a Future Weapons and Tools Pack. There will also be a Deluxe and Ultimate Edition for those playing digitally.

Rust: Console Edition will release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 21st. The original game is available now on PC.

Rust has been an absolute revelation in the survival genre ever since its early access launch in 2013, and through multiple years of changes, updates, and iterations, the game’s managed to retain an ever-growing playerbase. It was confirmed recently that Rust would finally be releasing for consoles soon (which is something that’s been teased on multiple occasions over the years), and now we know when to expect that.

Announced via a recent press release, Rust Console Edition will launch for the PS4 and Xbox One this Spring, which means we can expect it by April end at the very least (barring any delays, which is definitely a possibility). Ahead of that, the game is currently going through a closed beta for console players, for which you can sign up through here.

Rust Console Edition is being developed by Double Eleven, with original developer and publisher Facepunch Studios handing off porting duties to the studio. A more specific release date is likely to arrive in the coming weeks, so stay tuned to GamingBolt for more details.