When is Rust force wipe? The first Thursday of every month

Rust force wipe happens on the first Thursday of every month. That is the day Facepunch releases the game's monthly update, and every server, official and community alike, has to wipe its map to run the new version.

If you only remember one thing: first Thursday, evening UK time.

Why it is called a force wipe

Most Rust servers wipe on their own schedule: weekly, every two weeks, or monthly. The owner chooses. A force wipe is different because nobody chooses it. The monthly update changes the game in ways old maps and saves cannot carry over, so every server is forced to start fresh at the same time.

That is why force wipe is the busiest night in Rust. Every server wipes at once, everybody knows when, and a lot of players who skip ordinary wipes come back for it.

What time does force wipe happen?

The update usually lands in the late afternoon or evening UK time, around 7pm (around 2pm US Eastern). Servers do not all come back at the same minute. Each one has to shut down, update, generate or load its new map and start again, so they come back in waves over the following hour or so, and some community servers wait for a time they have announced themselves.

What gets wiped

On force wipe:

• The map always wipes. Every base, every box and everything in it is gone, on every server.
• Blueprints usually wipe too. Official servers wipe blueprints on force wipe. Community servers can choose, and most do, because a force wipe with blueprints kept feels unfair to anyone who joins late.
• Your Steam account, skins and items you own are untouched. A wipe only resets the server, never your account.

Upcoming force wipe dates

Because it is always the first Thursday, you can work the date out for any month: find the first Thursday on the calendar. If the month starts on a Thursday, force wipe is the 1st. If it starts on a Friday, you wait until the 7th.

How to be ready for it

The players who do well on force wipe are the ones in the server in the first minutes, when the map is empty and every resource is up for grabs. That usually means being at your PC at exactly the right moment, on exactly the right evening.

If you cannot be, because you are at work, at school or anywhere else, a tool like QueueUp lets you tap join on your phone so your gaming PC launches Rust and waits in the queue for you. On force wipe it can watch your server through its restart and queue the moment it is back.

The short version

• Force wipe is the first Thursday of every month.
• The update usually lands around 7pm UK time, and servers come back in waves after it.
• Maps always wipe; blueprints almost always do.
• The first minutes after a server comes back matter most.