For seasoned ARPG lovers, a unique Indie entry is here! Construct a deep build as you fight your way through mysterious places. Enemies are strong and smart, but you'll have a massive arsenal of tools and abilities to master in order to vanquish them. Dive in!
All Reviews:
Mostly Positive (50) - 78% of the 50 user reviews for this game are positive.
Release Date:
1 Apr, 2022

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Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“1) While I continue to put out frequent content updates and fixes, I want to make sure that the systems in place are satisfying and scalable. Community feedback will be critical for me to iterate and polish them.
2) As a (mostly) one-man studio, Quality Assurance and exploit-testing can be tricky. I'm hoping the Early Access community can help us whittle down those pesky bugs before Full Launch.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

Update: We've been in Early Access for about one year now and over multiple major updates have finished the complete Single Player experience, including twelve unique Regions, three Endgame Modes, and the Crafting System! We are currently testing Multiplayer and plan to leave Early Access within 2023 when Multiplayer is ready and released!”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

Update: The Early Access version now includes the majority of planned features. The couple things left before Launch are Multiplayer (currently in testing), and some further iteration and polish on the Endgame Modes and Itemization.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The current state is only Single-player at the moment, with plans for an upcoming P2P/LAN Multiplayer mode, and finally Secure Online Servers. There are 12 Regions with a complete campaign that has a branching quest line that takes you different routes. After the campaign, three EndGame modes open up, each with their own Leaderboards/Achievements and unique mechanics, as well as the Crafting system which will further augment and empower your builds!”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“The price may rise at launch depending on the final scope of content we manage to create and the state of Multiplayer. Unfortunately I cannot say with certainty at this time, but I'll be sure to update here when it is known.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Feedback about systems will be critical to our long-term success! We'll need to balance abilities, address exploits, fix bugs, and most importantly learn which systems are fun and satisfying, and which systems will need iterative work. I'll be in constant communication via Discord and DevBlogs about the progression of the game. I'm also planning to hold monthly Q+A live-streams. Please check out the Feedback sections at and share your thoughts! Alternatively you can use the Steam Forums, I'll be monitoring those as well.”
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About This Game

Ash & Rust is a top-down ARPG in a Dark Fantasy setting with a focus on:

Extreme build diversity and depth.


  • Abilities, Traits, and Gear interact with each other in deep ways, via an elegant UI grid system. Place Augment shapes into your Activated Inventory to enable them. The more shapes you can fit into the inventory the more power you can amass, so figuring out clever ways to piece things together can become a satisfying secondary skill.
  • Design your own Abilities from scratch! Pick from 4 base types, then choose your payload and Element type. As you level, add as many augments as you can fit to tailor your ability to your exact needs.
  • Choose from hundreds of augment and equipment options that combine to achieve interesting and deep playstyle types. For example, infusing the "Spell Weaving" trait onto your character makes it such that each time a different ability is cast, you stack up a buff. Casting the same ability twice in a row resets the stacks.

Visceral, Satisfying Combat


  • Fully animation-based attacks and collider-hit physics.
  • Like League of Legends or Dark Souls, you cannot just stand in one place and spam attack! Abilities have animation timings, cooldowns, and in general require strategic intentions.
  • "Sticky" movement and casts. (Prevents character "sliding" and other unsatisfying combat-feel).
  • Master the timings of animations and attacks to dodge enemy abilities, block projectiles, and line up your own devastating counter-moves.

Replayability

  • Three Endgame Modes! Each with Leaderboards/Achievements and unique mechanics.
  • Lots of loot: Weapons, Gear, Augments, Trinkets, and more, which all have significant impacts on your power, build, and playstyle.
  • Strategic Combat: Smart and strong enemies and bosses use A.I. Behavior Trees to respond to your actions: moving out of AoE, kiting when appropriate, dodging attacks, etc.
  • Gorgeous and mysterious places to explore. Full PBR materials (physically based rendering), real-time volumetric lighting, responsive foliage and terrain, and other advanced technical features.
  • Branching quests with dialogue choices. Your actions and responses shape the possible paths available to you.
  • Character customization. Design the physical appearance of your character.
  • And much more!

The World and Setting

You are...NOT the hero. You're just an Entity, plucked from the Aether to join a powerful organization. You are one of many OMENs, granted power and authority in exchange for servitude. You fulfill the wants and desires of overlords, creatures, and companies - the highest bidders. Your missions will take you to the farthest reaches, exploring wondrous places and meeting many characters. Some cower at your coming, but many eagerly embrace you. Some things are just as they seem, while others are smoke and mirrors. You can amass great influence as an OMEN, what mark on the world will you leave?

Ongoing Development

It is my plan to support and develop this game for years to come. This is a passion project and I absolutely love working on it. My aim is to continually add new end-game modes, new loot, new places, new enemies, and Quality of Life improvements. In its current state there are still some non-core aspects that are rough around the edges.
  • Many NPCs are not Voice acted yet.
  • Performance/Optimizations: Though I generally try and optimize as I go, there are still many aspects that can be optimized further so that the game will run better on a wider range of hardware.
  • Vfx clutter: There can be a lot of visual noise particularly with certain vfx. I'm working on toning them down and finding a happy medium between coolness and noise.
  • Placeholder assets: many of the games assets, such as environment objects, certain enemies, vfx, etc are placeholder and will eventually be replaced.
  • Character Customizer is rudimentary at the moment. I have plans for both more choices and more features (facial customization, body part sizing, etc).
I'll be working on polishing all these aspects and more!

Design Philosophies

  • Stat multipliers and large Area of Effects are kept to a MINIMUM. In AnR, there are no multiplicative scaling stats, only additive stats, many with built-in Diminishing Returns, and large AoE takes heavy augment investment, thus reducing character power in other areas. This should help remove the main culprits of forcing all builds down certain paths to be end-game viable.
  • No non-progression based combat systems. In other words there will never be combat mechanics that are not based on utilizing your build to defeat it. For example: no environment traps, no quests where you use some vehicle/turret to defeat enemies, no long-cooldown transformation forms ("apocalyptic" mode, etc). In AnR, your unique build means everything, and I don't want to gate/shoehorn your progress behind some arbitrary mechanic.
  • New content should never obsolete old content. E.g. the level cap will never be raised, the power range of newer items will never outscale older items, etc. Instead, new content should generate new playstyles, new types of builds, and new combat strategies, without making previous ones less effective.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

Violence, Gore, Strong Language

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10
    • Processor: Intel i5+ or AMD 1600
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia 1060 GTX or AMD RX 580
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 18 GB available space
    • VR Support: Does NOT support Controller or Steam Deck currently
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10
    • Processor: Intel i5+ or AMD 1700+
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia 1070 GTX or AMD RX 5600 XT
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 18 MB available space
    • VR Support: Does NOT support Controller or Steam Deck currently

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