Huge Rust server fire causes data loss

The team behind Rust announced via Twitter today that a major fire had broken out at a data centre which holds many of the game’s EU servers. 

In the Tweet, Rust developer Facepunch Studios confirms the blaze broke out at the OVHCloud Datacente in Strasbourg, France. 

At the time of writing, Facepunch seems to be bringing servers back online slowly, although only 15 of the affected 25 are back. 

The studio confirmed in a follow up tweet that the data on the affected servers is permanently lost. 

Data Loss

The fire, which only affected EU servers, has completely wiped the data on those servers, meaning players have lost up to a month of potential progress.

Much like Minecraft or other persistent online games, players in Rust can build entire towns, cities and communities in Rust, which is always accessible through the game’s hosted servers. 

This fire means that any players who had maps within the affected servers will have lost any progress they’ve made. 

Wider Disruption

The fire has also affected a number of other video games with hosted servers. Rocket League fan site and trading hub, RLGarage, confirmed in a Tweet today that some of its services were also down. 

A number of hosted Minecraft servers are also down, as you can see in documents obtained by Stealth Optional. 

Fortunately, it appears no one was hurt in the blaze which is obviously the most important piece of news. 

Further documentation obtained by Stealth Optional confirms that Minecraft players using the servers will retain some data, as it is backed up on another server away from the data centre. Players will however need to change the IP address of their server. 

Expect more news to follow this event in the coming days, as developers, publishers and users report data loss and disruptions. Let’s just be thankful this fire wasn’t so much worse. 

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