This is the first post in the blog — and it’s about the reason the blog exists in the first place.

Survival Rust Machine is a multiplayer survival/PvP about cars in a post-apocalyptic setting. Mine resources, bolt modular weapons onto your rig, fight other players, lose everything when you die, build reputation. The rest is detail.

The concept in one paragraph

An open world divided into zones. Some allow PvP, others don’t — but the safe ones have fewer resources. Players pick a role, drive their cars, mine, trade, hunt each other. Watching over it all is Control — a police faction you can call for help, join, or try to avoid.

Three factions

• Resourcers. Slow, armored, packing heavy machine guns. Out to extract resources. When things go sideways — they call Control.
• Bandits. Light, fast cars, light weapons. Their goal is taking other players’ loot. They have their own city where PvP is open to everyone.
• Control. Police. Mostly NPCs at launch, but players can enlist. Responds to distress calls from resourcers, patrols the map, hunts down “wanted” players.

Core mechanics

• Cars you drive; modular weapons; modular garage.
• PvP with rules: whoever started gets flagged. Self-defense isn’t punished.
• Wrecked cars can be looted for components.
• Death drops everything you carried. Progression lives in vehicle and gear upgrades — but those drop too.
• Reputation and a wanted system. Kill often enough and Control starts hunting you.
• Two hub cities: resourcer (no PvP, hunts down low-rep players) and bandit (PvP always on). Between them — a player-driven resource market.
• Zones of varying danger: safer = less loot, riskier = more.
• Squads, so groups can run dangerous zones together.

The progression reference point is something like Arc Raiders: progress through gear that you can lose.

Step one — validate demand

Before commissioning models, building locations, or writing tons of code, we need to know there’s an audience. Minimum plan:

1. Steam page with a CG trailer and screenshots (fully pre-rendered, no build yet).
2. A small ad spend driving traffic to the page.
3. Wishlists — the metric that matters. If we collect enough, we move on.

The trailer

A resourcer truck pulls up to a gas station, drives out to a mining zone, starts pumping oil. Spots bandits on the horizon, radios Control. They tell him where they are — the resourcer rolls toward them with bandits on his tail. A copter films the chase. Near the meet point the resourcer veers off and Control opens fire on the bandits.

The screenshots

Carry the atmosphere and gameplay. Every shot features cars we already have models for:

• Resourcer mining as bandits appear on the horizon. Two layers at once: extraction + PvP threat.
• Chase. A bandit car chasing the truck. Shot from the copter.
• Control’s Bukhanka shooting up a bandit Vosmyorka. A wheel epicly flying off.
• Control rolling up to its base.
• Resourcer pulling into the gas station.

Existing assets

Bukhanka (Control), UAZ (Resourcer), Vosmyorka (Bandit), Base, Gas Station.

What’s missing

• A mining location with approaching bandits.
• A road on that location — long enough for the chase and shootout shots.
• Ideally one or two more locations if budget allows.

What’s next on the blog

I’ll write about the process here: the trailer and Steam page production, the wishlist and ad numbers, design decisions on mechanics, what got cut and why. The point isn’t to market the game — it’s to honestly show how an idea becomes a game, especially the part you don’t usually see.

Stick around if any of that sounds interesting.