A fire has destroyed a datacentre used by the online survival game Rust, according to a report by Reuters.

The blaze broke out overnight in Strasbourg, France, and completely destroyed one of OVHcloud’s data centres while damaging another. As a result, millions of websites and services are now offline, including Rust’s game servers.
The French Government, Centre Pompidou and various news agencies have also been affected by the incident [via Kotaku].

The official Rust Twitter account confirmed that the game was affected by the fire, providing the following update:
“We’ve confirmed a total loss of the affected EU servers during the OVH data centre fire. We’re now exploring replacing the affected servers. Data will be unable to be restored.”
Unfortunately, this means that any player progress within the servers has been effectively reset.
Rust’s servers are currently being reinstated, but the countless hours put into the game by its EU fanbase are unrecoverable.
OVHCloud’s founder, Octave Klaba, has also been providing updates via Twitter. The tech boss provided various details throughout the night, finishing off with a thank you note to everyone involved in the datacentre’s recovery:
“Many thanks for all the empathy messages you sent us today! I want to thank the teams who have been working all night/day. It’s been the worst day for the last 22y, and there is no word strong enough to say how sorry I feel today. We keep working hard to restart SBG1/3/4 asap!”
Thankfully, no one was hurt during the incident. However, Rust players are now pushing for Facepunch to invest in some sort of backup system. Some players have pointed out that the process could be costly.
Hopefully, Rust’s player base isn’t too disheartened by the incident. The survival game welcomes a lot of creativity, from crafting to role-playing. I suppose this incident is a testament to the importance of backups and always being prepared for the worst.
Featured Image Credit: Facepunch Studios