Jeff Kaplan says The Legend of California has Rust energy, but it won't be a cowboy clone

Jeff Kaplan’s new survival project, The Legend of California, has already drawn comparisons to Rust thanks to its resettable worlds and survival DNA. Kaplan and Kintsugiyama co-head Tim Ford spent a ten-hour Twitch stream over the weekend answering player questions and pushing back on the idea that the game will be a straight clone of Facepunch Studios’ title.

During the stream Kaplan told viewers, “I would never want to mislead Rust players into thinking this is cowboy Rust or California Rust,” and explained the studio wants a blend of cooperative PvE and optional PvP. The segment where Kaplan discussed those design choices is available in the Twitch archive of the stream linked at the timestamp provided on Twitch.

One clear boundary the team set was base raiding: Kaplan said the game would not include a base-raiding system when it launches into early access. He described the intent to offer “full PvP servers for the people who are into it” and compared part of the approach to World of Warcraft Classic-style opt-in PvP rather than forcing raiding into every server.

That does not mean PvP is sidelined. Kaplan noted the team had designed world events, dedicated zones, and a PvP-aware loot economy to support player-versus-player activity for those who prefer it. But the immediate target for early access is a more cooperative experience, with the option for hardcore players to seek out purely PvP servers if they want base-raiding or intense competitive play.

The team is also thinking about how world resets will work. In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Kaplan said he admired Rust’s resetting-world mechanic and floated the idea of roughly monthly resets as a possible model, arguing the challenge is making resets feel rewarding rather than frustrating, “the resetting world is the magic”. The Legend of California was taking playtest sign-ups on Steam at the time of reporting, those interested could register for a chance to join that playtest on the game’s Steam page.

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The Legend of California is an open world, action-survival shooter set on the mythical Island of California during the gold rush era. Explore a vast, untamed frontier and forge your legacy alone or with friends