RUST TRIPTYCH
By Arsinikk - 27 Maps
Format: Vanilla
[Download]
[Full list of Codex Passwords]
Started: October 6th 2026
Finished: October 10th 2026
Status: Completed
(Re-re-reviewed with the release of Episode 3: E\/3NT H0R120N.)
Important note: RUST is intended for use with Doom V1.666. Provided you aren't trying to run it on DOS, the Ultimate Doom IWAD will function just fine so long as you set the compatibility level correctly (in this case, complevel 1) in your sourceport of choice. DSDA-Doom or Nyan Doom are highly recommended for RUST, due to its usage of various wonky compatibility stuff, though it has been stated to work in most other major sourceports with no issue.
RUST is finally completed! Despite bouncing off E2 pretty hard back when it released, I still promised myself to give the entire thing a proper re-evaluation once the final episode was fully finished. Each episode of RUST is wildly different from the others, hence the final product's full title, so this review will be structured as such. There will be fairly extensive spoilers towards the latter half of this review, since it's quite difficult to talk about what makes RUST so unique without explaining it, so if you want a quick two sentence review: RUST is a really really interesting wad that does a bunch of stuff I hate but is also too unique and impressive to just immediately call bad. It's absolutely worth a look but I can't guarantee maximum fun for everyone, or even for most people.
EPISODE 1: THE INFERNAL MACHINE
RUST's first episode is 90s techbases to the core. Midi covers of Nine Inch Nails songs, texture alignment issues, and questionable level design galore! While it doesn't make for the gentlest first impression, all of RUST's weirdness is very much intentional. Arsinikk wields 90s jank and modern mapping skill in perfect balance. Every bit of weird bullshit and questionable design was very much fully on purpose, and while it does take some tolerance, it makes some of the later headache inducingly stupid design choices hurt a bit less. Early episode 1 doesn't fight too dirty at least, taking you through simple techbases bathed in a never-ending rainstorm outside, while slowly introducing each Doom 1 enemy as you progress further. The secret map, E1MX "Teeth" is a portend of things to come in the second episode, a detour into naturalistic caves and a tiny glimpse of RUST's future ventures into dehacked wizardry. Doom v1.666, despite not containing any of Doom 2's new additions, still has all the extra internal slots for those enemies and assets present, which RUST uses absolutely all of to cram in its extensive bits of custom content while still staying within vanilla constraints. The Toximp is the only custom enemy you'll see here in E1, being a significantly faster and beefier Imp that throws Baron of Hell projectiles instead of the usual fireballs, and RUST makes the very smart choice to throw the Chainsaw in the trash in favor of a new weapon, the Dark Teeth, which eats 20 bullets per shot but fires out a massively powerful blast of hitscan shots directly in front of you. E1M5 "Siege" is the first big powertrip of the episode, handing you a free rocket launcher and a base filled with demons to blow up, but the tight health balancing and limited space means you'll need to be a little careful not to explode your face off. E1M7 "Mainframe" is easily the highlight of E1, a perfect horror-lite experience where the game feels like it's breaking apart at the seams. Unfortunately E1M8 "Killswitch" ends the episode on a bum note. A giant set of flat ugly rooms filled with haphazard clumps of the same enemy type that you have to get through on a 3 minute timer, all while you're constantly getting shot by a Spider Mastermind turret. The minmalist environment and limited detail was presumably done for vanilla compatibility reasons, but the effect on the final product is extremely noticeable here. Overall, episode 1 won't completely blow you away, but it establishes the goals of the overall experience very nicely. It perfectly captures the weird jank of 90s maps, but with enough precision that you know it's all being done earnestly and with love for that early era of Doom mapping.
EPISODE 2: JAWS OF THE EARTH
So long techbases! Episode 2 abandons the metal bastions of human progress in favor of overgrown forests, caves of toxic slime, and ancient demonic temples. Where episode 1 was 90s jank with a hint of new stuff, episode 2 proudly rolls out all sorts of new textures, more experimental map ideas, and a ton of custom dehacked enemies. Episode 1 gave a tiny taste of this new bestiary with the Toximp back in E1MX, but episode 2 wastes no time showing off the new guys. Toximps make their immediate appearance as early as your very first moments in E2M1 "Spitfire", but you'll quickly be introduced to rocket launcher zombies (self explanatory), Viles (lesser versions of the Archvile with a limited range flame attack but the same healing ability), and Nightmares (Lost Souls that turn into invincible homing ghosts that explode on contact with you or a wall) shortly thereafter. E2M3 "Willow" introduces you to RUST's most obnoxious custom enemy, the Medusa, which instead of attacking you will lock you in place for as long as they can see you, which makes for some really obnoxious encounters where they block your movement while everything else has free reign to maul you to death. You can seemingly glitch this attack if you move fast enough before it hits, but if you aren't able to stun them out of it they'll loop it indefinitely and give you no chance to escape. E2M4 "Sanguine" strays a bit from the nature theme with a hellish blood factory that opens with one of the most frustrating small scale encounters in the entire wad, and introduces yet another custom enemy, the Skinwalker (just a melee-only Revenant) alongside your intended first encounter with E2's signature new weapon. Your usual Plasma Rifle has been traded in for a short-ranged flamethrower that melts anything up close at rapid speed, at the cost of very little range. E2MX is a little underwhelming for a secret map, being an homage to Doom 2's Map 8 that mostly just exists to give an early showcase to the Proto-Drone (a more lethal Arachnotron with an unpredictable plasma spread attack) which will become more common once you reach episode 3. E2M6 "Isolation" takes the hints of horror from E1 and cranks them up to the maximum, using the semi-functional weapon slot usually used by the SSG to give you a custom flashlight to explore a barren ash-covered landscape and the horrors beneath. E2M8 "Pyre" makes for the most traditional episode closer in the entire wad, just you, a huge stash of rockets and cells, and a whole lot of demons, all set to some good old midi-fied Metallica. Episode 2 makes for the best balance between weird 90s jank and RUST's signature new twists, though the peaks of 90s-ness annoyance are worse than E1's.
EPISODE 3: E\/3NT H0R120N
Welcome to the final frontier! And also when RUST completely jumps off the deep end. Episode 3 takes a much more puzzle focused approach to things, maps are generally a lot longer and SIGNIFICANTLY more confusing. The space theme is very fun to look at and makes for a great contrast compared to the traditional techbases of E1 and the slightly spooky natural landscapes of E2. E3 doesn't introduce nearly as many new enemies as E2, but RUST still finds time to fill out its bestiary a little more. E3M1 "H34V3N5" sets up the episode perfectly, with some adorable doomcute spaceships, giving a light introduction to the more puzzle focused style in its opening room and showcasing the first of 3 new enemies. Marine Vessels use the same flamethrower as you and go semi-invisible while moving, and essentially replace the rocket launcher zombies from E2. E3M3 "H4i_0" is a nearly barren exploration focused map in a decaying space station, with some great vibes to offset your frustration at the really weird ass door opening gimmick and the crate maze full of random annoying crushers. Every room is rigged to kill you in a unique way, almost like the station itself is an enemy, but it's not the only thing that's decided to try and kill you... E3M5 "H4LCY0N" is E3's lengthiest outing, a sort of RUST Greatest Hits Album to close things out before this wad truly goes off the rails, taking you through various vignettes of areas embodying the design style of all 3 episodes, and at last hands you the final weapon in the arsenal. The Dark Weaver is very similar to the usual BFG, but with the additional twist of its projectiles constantly emitting a damaging aura as they travel, letting it cut through clumps of lower tier enemies while still traveling forward. Unfortunately this isn't really taught to you properly, which makes a later scenario much more annoying to deal with as a result. Then there's... E3MX "H4D35". Due to shenanigans, there is no E3M6, so finishing E3M5 sends you directly to the secret map no matter what, and it's hell! It's an intentionally confusing puzzle that takes Doom 1's original E3M9 "Warrens" and puts it through the RUST blender. Getting to the exit is just as easy as in the map it's copying from, but instead of moving on you're sent back to the start. Your goal is to somehow figure out what the FUCK Arsinikk wants from you as you attempt to find the real exit that lets you leave while constantly being forced to start over from the beginning if you mess up. I had absolutely NO idea how you're meant to actually solve this complete disaster on my first playthrough, and it made for a very terrible mood going into E3M7, "7731-1". No regular Doom map could conclude RUST after everything you've been through up until now, so "7731-1" makes for one last trip through your deepest nightmares to close things out. The visually striking landscape and creepy atmosphere is pretty cool, but unfortunately this map uses my least favorite Doom glitch, ghost monsters, which results in a pretty lackluster and terrible final fight. A giant wall of Cyberdemons vs a bunch of random ghost enemies, where you just run like a maniac and try not to instantly die to a Cyberdemon rocket while using the secret hidden tech of your BFG replacement to try and clear out the horde, as the passive damage from the Dark Weaver projectiles is able to damage the ghosts just like splash damage from rockets. Why did I say finale when there's one more map left? Well the actual final map is just a quick walk through some nice Doomcute with a surprise twist ending that won't quite make much sense if you haven't delved into RUST's deeper narrative. Episode 3 is the extremes of this wad in full force, maximum creativity and weirdness that crumbles under its own ambition, leaving a very weird experience when it's all said and done.
THE CODEX
There's one last aspect of the RUST experience that's worth mentioning here, that being the Codex! It's been around since the initial release of E1, but got expanded tiers of access with the release of each subsequent episode. It's a truly impressive amount of fully written database entries regarding each of the maps, weapons, enemies, and surprisingly extensive narrative and history for the world that RUST takes place in. You don't need it if you only want to play the wad itself, but without it RUST is an incomplete experience. To gain access, there's a puzzle you need to solve using the wad itself to eventually get a password. The puzzle for tier 1 access is contained within episode 1, tier 2 in episode 2 etc. you get it. The puzzles aren't completely unreasonable, and Arsinikk does provide a set of hints (that are unfortunately not up to date as of now), but as a certified dumbass and puzzle hater I do kinda have issues with this. The Codex hides so much of RUST's cool extra stuff, with a truly staggering amount of actual lore that ties the entire experience together, but unless you're good with puzzles you're not ever gonna see any of it unless you go cheat and look up the answers. The puzzle for tier 1 access isn't too bad, and with the exception of needing some stuff that's hosted on separate websites and not contained inside the codex or the wad itself, the puzzle for tier 2 access is also pretty normal. The puzzle for tier 3 access is pretty easy in terms of the actual thought process, but DAMN if inputting that solution isn't a pain in the ass. Once you get tier 2 access you'll unlock a new section of the Codex, the Dark Labyrinth minigame. It's a flat maze with 8 collectible sigils scattered throughout it, with randomly spawning instakill enemies that you can barely see and need to fend off by swinging your torch at them. The maze is repetitive and same-y, and while you can bank sigils if you manage to bring one back to the central room, dying resets the entire minimap, forcing you to go back to stumbling around blindly like an idiot hoping to run into something. It's not especially difficult in terms of raw skill, but the cool factor of a second game hidden within the Codex wears off extremely quickly, and god help you if you play this without knowing the proper order of the sigils because if you close the Codex ALL your progress goes down the drain. Thankfully it has seemingly received a major patch since I finished it (I blame my several paragraphs of feedback I posted in RUST E3's release thread), so hopefully it isn't as bad for other people later on. Even if you end up not enjoying RUST, I do highly recommend reading through the entire Codex regardless, just to appreciate the amount of cool stuff it contains and the work put into it. There's a link to a text file with all the passwords up at the top of this review for a reason.
I won't lie, this wad breaks my rating system a bit. Looking at it from an outside perspective, RUST is an incredible achievement. All this creativity, custom content and mapping wizardry all placed into a single vanilla compatible Doom 1 wad? AND it has a fully written lore codex you access by solving hidden puzzles with hints hidden in the wad? Absolutely amazing, A+, 5/5, 100%, incredible job. However, actually playing it is a very different story. The 90s-ness of RUST is both its greatest asset and its fatal flaw. Some of these maps are just painful to get through, between some frustrating enemy encounters and evil uses of the new dehacked enemies, and so many instances of "why the fuck did you make this work like that???", that I can't blame anyone for bouncing off this wad without getting to see all the things it does do well. Episode 1 is fairly enjoyable, and I did like E2 much more than I did the first time around, but on average E3 was just... not fun. There were parts of it that I liked, but it's the point when RUST completely loses me thanks to just how painfully obtuse the progression is. RUST is one of the most impressive experiences I've ever played, using the Doom engine and its core gameplay as a springboard for a completely self contained adventure and narrative, and despite the extreme low points I am VERY glad I got to experience it, so it gets the rare N/A rating, and a permanent spot on the list of "cool Doom stuff that I don't quite love but someone else will surely adore".
Rating - N/A
Favorite Map - E2M6: "Isolation"
Least Favorite Map - E3MX: "H4D35"