Rust has a ‘horse shield’ meta problem, so one enterprising player has come up with a ‘horse baiting’ meta to fix it

If you play Rust then the mere sight of the words “horse shield” probably have you gnashing your teeth and cursing the cheap no-gooders who rely on it. The whole thing is very simple. Ride a horse, equip a shield, and players on-foot have almost no chance against you.

Facepunch has already taken steps to address this on the game’s staging branch, but for now it remains an issue in vanilla Rust. Cometh the hour, cometh the man: Take a bow, Rust YouTuber Fyx, who has, erm, fyxed the issue in their own inimitable way. They turned the horse into bait.

Necessary context here is that, while horses do spawn in the wild in Rust, and can be tamed with a saddle, and the fastest way to get one is to buy one at a Ranch. This is also the easiest way to get a thoroughbred (the fastest kind of horse). In other words, horses are valuable and desirable things in the world of Rust, and one just standing around with no rider is one hell of a temptation.

This is what Fyx relies on, and they’ve come up with four different methods of using the horse as bait to tempt players, who then get an extremely nasty surprise. Fair warning: a lot of videogame horses were harmed in the making of this YouTube video.

The first method is simplicity itself: disguising landmines around the horse. Basic, brutal, and oh-so-effective on the vast majority of players, who don’t even get to mount up before they (and the horse) are sent to meet their maker.

Then things start to get a little more Acme Industries. Fyx rigs-up a false floor, under which are a whole bunch of shotguns that trigger the instant anyone steps on it. The horse is on the false floor. Players approach, some of them even hesitate for a moment, but again almost all of them can’t turn down a free horse: they step forward to mount, and kablammo.

This is all proving rather profitable for Fyx, which is a good thing because they need to buy an army of horses to keep this up. Next is an even more elaborate shotgun trap, which involves the horse being left on a pressure pad. When the player mounts the horse, nothing happens…

But as soon as they move forward the pressure pad activates, and a door on the player’s right instantaneously flies open and around half-a-dozen shotguns fire and take care of business. Even the most cautious of horse-rustlers (thangew) fall for this one.

Finally, a return to the basics. Sleeping bag on the ground. Remotely triggered C4 explosive under sleeping bag. Horse next to sleeping bag. Retreat to a safe distance with binoculars. Watch player approach. Detonate C4. Bye-bye!

I suppose what this video really showcases is just how many tools Rust offers players, and how many horses one determined player is prepared to sacrifice in order to take out those who would be horse shield meta chads. As Fyx himself puts it: “if you’re tired of getting destroyed by the horse shield meta, consider this a public service.”