Rust

According to Facepunch’s Garry Newman, Rust started out as a DayZ clone. It entered Early Access in December 2013. The zombies were soon replaced with red mutant bears and wolves, and the full release only came in February 2018.

You don't pick your face or skin colour. Since 2015 the game assigns them, tied to your Steam account. Newman explained he wanted something like a fingerprint, so people would recognise each other by more than their names. Later the game started assigning gender at random too.

A forced wipe erases buildings and learned blueprints alike. Critics praised the PvP and the survival and complained about the grind. One reviewer warned of a toxic community, another called the start prickly for newcomers. Players leave 87% positive out of 1,179,038 reviews, critics give it 69 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #2,059 of 4,736 games.

Liked Rust? Try Reign Of Kings, a similar survival game set in the Middle Ages where you can seize the throne, and The Long Dark, with no other players at all, just the cold and wild animals.