Monthly Force Wipe
Published 2026-05-15 · Updated 2026-05-15
Rust's monthly force wipe, in plain English
Every first Thursday of the month at 18:00 UTC, Facepunch ships a Rust patch that wipes the procedural map on every vanilla server. If you're looking for a server that follows that cadence cleanly — without hidden plugins or modded shortcuts — this page is for you. It's also the rule MistyWisp follows, exactly.
What actually gets wiped
On force-wipe day Facepunch's patch invalidates every save file. The procedural map regenerates from scratch with a fresh seed — every base, every TC, every monument loot spawn, every player corpse. Vehicles, helicopters, scientists, all of it resets.
Blueprints (the recipes you've unlocked) survive. Your tech-tree progress carries over to the new map. So does your Steam profile, ban history, and friends list.
On a vanilla server like MistyWisp, monthly force wipe is a map wipe only. A full blueprint wipe happens at most once or twice a year, when Facepunch announces one upstream alongside a major itemisation patch.
Why every vanilla server wipes that day
Patch day breaks save compatibility. A server that delays will either crash on boot or silently corrupt the save. So the entire vanilla-Rust ecosystem moves together. That synchronisation is what gives wipe day its size: thousands of players queue across hundreds of servers within the same hour. If you join a server that wipes off-cadence, you're missing the rush.
Modded servers sometimes break this convention to draw attention with mid-month wipes. Vanilla servers do not. That's the point of vanilla.
What a wipe day looks like on MistyWisp
- 17:45 UTC — 15-minute in-game countdown begins. Discord announcement posted in parallel.
- 18:00 UTC— Server saves a backup, runs Facepunch's update, generates a new map seed.
- ~18:05–18:10 UTC — Server back online with the fresh map. Queue opens.
- First hour — Roof-camp meta. Everyone naked, hatchet-rushing nodes. Stash early, hide your salt.
What stays the same between wipes
- Server hostname, address, and Steam connect link
- Your unlocked blueprint library
- Discord-linked alerts (if you set up Base Radar)
- Server rules, admin team, mod status (vanilla, always)
- Any active bans (we don't reset bans on wipe day)
What about patch days that aren't wipe day?
Facepunch ships small patches throughout the month — usually a hotfix per week. MistyWisp's update watcher polls Steam every 5 minutes for a new build ID. When one drops, the server announces a 10-minute restart, applies the patch, and comes back up — all without wiping. Bases, items, players: all preserved.
When's the next wipe?
The MistyWisp homepage shows a live countdown to the next force wipe, and the wipe schedule page lists the next six. They're calculated from the same rule Facepunch uses: first Thursday of the month, 18:00 UTC.
See you on day one.