Why is Rust For Game Development?6 Best Reasons Why is Rust Good for Game Development?

Since the era of portable gaming, we have come a long way. Despite their apparent simplicity, the classic Tetris and Mario games were extremely difficult to program, had limited graphics, and were simple to operate. Many of these games were created in the C family of languages, which added to the difficulty of programming them; however, it’s difficult to pinpoint the language in which each was originally written.

Rust has been hailed as one of C’s replacements. It raises the original question: How exactly will Rust differ from C if C is tough to code?

This question’s response is found in Rust’s methodology. The Mozilla Foundation created Rust primarily as a systems programming language. Throughout the past 20 years, C/C++ has been the main game development language. With Rust, the focus shifts from object orientation to data orientation.

According to a Stack Overflow survey from 2022, 86.73% of professional developers enjoy Rust, compared to 13.27% who despise it.

Actually, for six years in a row, Rust has been the most popular programming language.  Due to its growing user base and popularity, Rust will soon break into the top five and become a standard among programmers worldwide.

To keep you current, here’s a brief overview of the Rust for game development programming language and reasons why you should use it for your next project.

What is Rust Game Development? 

Rust for Game Development uses the Rust programming language to develop video games. It is a modern systems programming language emphasizing memory safety, performance, and concurrency. It has gained popularity recently as a language well-suited for game development due to its performance and safety features.

With performance being vital in game development, Rust’s ownership and borrowing mechanism ensures that memory is managed properly and effectively. Modern games must operate on various platforms; therefore, Rust’s concurrency characteristics make it easy to design code that can benefit from multi-core CPUs.

Moreover, Rust is highly suited for creating game engines, the software frameworks that handle a game’s essential features, including user input, physics simulation management, and graphic rendering. It is feasible to create game engines that are quick, effective, and dependable due to Rust’s performance and safety capabilities.

Rust for game development has produced several game engines, including Amethyst, Bevy, and ggez. With features like physics simulation, graphics, and input processing already developed, these engines serve as a base for game developers to construct their creations.

In the upcoming years, more games and game engines are expected to be built in Rust due to the language’s rising popularity in the game development industry.

Why is Rust for Game Development?

Rust is a systems programming language that has gained popularity recently due to its focus on performance, safety, and concurrency. These characteristics make it a great fit for game development, where performance is critical, and bugs can be especially costly.

Here are some reasons why Rust for game development is good:

1. Performance: 

Rust’s performance is comparable to C and C++, often used for game development. It is a high-performance language that offers low-level control over memory usage. In game development, performance is crucial, and even minor performance issues can cause the game to feel laggy or unresponsive, which can negatively impact the player’s experience.

Overall, Rust’s emphasis on performance makes it an excellent choice for game development, allowing developers to create high-quality games that run efficiently and provide a seamless gaming experience for players.

2. Memory Safety: 

Rust’s memory safety is one of the significant benefits of game development. Memory safety is a programming language property that ensures that the program does not access or manipulate memory in ways that could cause crashes, security vulnerabilities, or other unintended consequences.

Memory safety is particularly important in game development because games often involve complex, high-performance code that can be difficult to debug and optimize. A single memory-related issue can cause the game to crash or behave unpredictably, leading to a poor user experience. By using Rust for game development, developers can be more confident that their code is free from memory-related issues, resulting in more stable, secure, and performant games.

3. Concurrency: 

Concurrency is the ability of a program to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. In game development, concurrency is important because games often involve complex systems that require parallel processing to run efficiently.

Rust’s language features make writing concurrent code easy to take advantage of modern hardware, such as multi-core CPUs. This can be useful for tasks such as physics simulation or AI. 

4. Cross-platform support: 

Cross-platform support is one of the major benefits of Rust for game development. Rust can be compiled to run on various platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and even game consoles like the Nintendo Switch. This makes it easier for game developers to create games that a wider audience can play without spending much time and effort on platform-specific development.

Using Rust, game developers can write code once and deploy it to multiple platforms, reducing the development time and cost. Additionally, since Rust is a systems programming language, it offers low-level control over memory usage, which can be critical in game development, particularly for low-power devices like mobile phones or game consoles.

5. Community and tooling: 

Rust has a growing community of developers actively working on game development libraries and frameworks, making it easier for developers to get started with game development in Rust. The Rust community is supportive, helpful, and open to collaboration, which fosters a welcoming environment for game developers of all levels.

Overall, a supportive community and excellent tooling make Rust a great choice for game development. Developers can benefit from the collective expertise and experience of the community while also taking advantage of Rust’s powerful and efficient features.

6. Easy to learn: 

One of the benefits of Rust for game development is that it is relatively easy to learn, especially for developers already familiar with C++ or other systems programming languages. Rust’s syntax is similar to C++, and its concepts are familiar to developers with experience with other low-level languages. This makes it easier for developers to transition to Rust and build games.

Who Employs Rust?

Rust for game development is used by a wide range of companies and organizations, as well as individual developers, for various purposes. Some of the prominent game development companies that use Rust include:

Is Rust Future of the Game Development?

It is difficult to predict the future of game development and which technologies will dominate it. However, Rust is a promising language for game development and has been gaining popularity in the industry.

One of Rust’s key strengths is its ability to produce highly performant code while maintaining memory safety and security. This makes it well-suited for developing games that require a lot of processing power, such as open-world games or games with complex physics engines. Rust’s support for concurrent programming and ability to integrate easily with other languages and platforms make it a versatile choice for game developers.

Several game engines built using Rust, such as Amethyst, Bevy, and Piston, have gained traction in the game development community. These engines offer features such as entity-component systems, modern rendering pipelines, and flexible scripting languages, which can make game development faster and more efficient.

Generally, Rust can interact with other programming languages, such as C and C++; it features a foreign function interface that may call C code from Rust. Now that we have discussed that Rust for Game development is the future, it’s time to look for the comparison of Rust with other programming languages. So, let’s dive right into it.

Comparison Of Rust With Different Game Development Languages

Rust is a fast, safe, and efficient programming language that can assist you in creating games quickly. While over other game development languages, Rust provides a lot of advantages. 

Although C++ and other languages are great options for game creation, they can be more difficult to learn and utilize. Rust for game development might be a better option if you’re just getting started in game creation. Here is a comparison of Rust with some other popular game development languages:

• Rust vs. C++: C++ has long been the dominant language for game development due to its high performance and low-level control. Rust offers similar performance and control but with added safety features that make it less prone to memory-related bugs and errors. Additionally, Rust’s ownership system can make it easier to write multithreaded code, which can be a challenge in C++.
• Rust vs. C#: C# is a popular language for game development on the Unity engine. While C# is a higher-level language than Rust, it offers similar performance benefits and can be easier to write and maintain due to its garbage collector. However, Rust’s safety features and memory management system make it more secure and less prone to crashes than C#.
• Rust vs. Python: Python is a popular language for game development on the Pygame framework but is typically not used for high-performance games. On the other hand, Rust offers performance benefits that make it suitable for games requiring more processing power. Rust’s type system and ownership model can make writing maintainable and scalable code easier.
• Rust vs. Java: Java is another popular language for game development, particularly on the Android platform. While Java offers similar benefits to C# regarding ease of use and garbage collection, Rust offers better performance and memory safety features. Additionally, Rust’s support for concurrency can make it easier to write scalable and efficient code.

What Type of Games can you Build with Rust?

From simple to complicated multiplayer games, you may create them using Rust. Some genres to consider are Racing, Puzzle, Simulation, Action, Card, VR, RPG, Strategy, FPS, Open World, and many more.

Rust is currently not the greatest option if you want to create powerful games for various platforms and consoles because there aren’t many resources available for game creation in Rust. In addition, few strong game engines support Rust at that level of game development.

Most console game developers don’t utilize Rust; instead, C++, C#, or Lua are the ideal languages to create games quickly for almost all platforms. These languages have a wealth of resources that can be used to make games quickly and effectively.

Popular Games Made with Rust 

While Rust for game development is a relatively new language, several notable games have already been developed using Rust or Rust-based game engines. Here are some examples:

1. Rust Doom:

Rust Doom is a project demonstrating how the Rust programming language can be used to create a new version of the classic first-person shooter game Doom. The project is an open-source effort led by the Rust for game development community.

The game engine, game logic, and renderer pipeline for Rust Doom were all created using the Rust programming language. The project is constructed on top of the Rust port of the Doom source code that is currently in use. Compared to the original C code, the Rust code offers a variety of advantages, such as enhanced memory safety, enhanced efficiency, and simpler code maintenance.

2. Veloren:

A 3D voxel-based multiplayer role-playing game (RPG) developed completely in Rust is called Veloren. You can hunt for treasure, fight barbarians, and explore dungeons. It is an open-world RPG developed by the Veloren team that uses the Rust-based game engine Amethyst.  Although it’s still under development, the game is evolving to offer a rich, immersive gaming experience.

Instead of describing models as collections of triangles, voxel engines define points in 3D space. Voxels offer players a fantastic opportunity to add content to video games, and they may build incredibly dynamic environments. Probably the most played voxel-based game is Minecraft.

3. Nox Futura:

Nox Futura is a multiplayer action game developed by DRAGO Entertainment using the Rust programming language. The game is set in a dystopian future where players compete in a post-apocalyptic arena to survive and become the last player standing.

The Rust for game development for high performance and efficiency, critical for a fast-paced action game like Nox Futura. Rust’s memory safety features and concurrency support ensure the game runs reliably and without crashes.

4. Hematite:

Hematite is a voxel-based sandbox game developed using the Rust programming language. The game is still in the early stages of development, but it already demonstrates some of the benefits of using Rust for game development.

One of the key benefits of using Rust for game development is its performance. Rust is a systems programming language designed to be fast and efficient, and it has several features that make it well-suited for game development. 

These are just a few games developed using Rust or Rust-based engines. As Rust for game development continues to gain popularity in the game development community, we’ll likely see more games developed using this powerful language.

Conclusion

In this article, as can be seen, Rust can be utilized for game creation, but not to the same extent as C++, C#, or Lua. Rust for game development has many fantastic features, making it a great game creation alternative. However, use Unity (C#) or Unreal Engine (C++) to create games for various platforms and consoles efficiently. We also examined why Rust is so well-liked and how it influences how frequently it is utilized in game development. I hope that this article has demonstrated how to select the best game language for your requirements.

FAQs

Question 1: What is Rust game development?

Rust for game development uses the Rust programming language to create video games. Rust is known for its performance, reliability, and memory safety features, making it a popular choice among game developers.

Question 2: Why Rust for game development is good?

Rust offers several benefits for game development, including high performance, memory safety, and concurrency support. These features make it well-suited for creating games that require a lot of processing power or that need to handle complex physics engines or AI.

Question 3: What game engines are built using Rust?

Several game engines are built using Rust, including Amethyst, Bevy, and Piston. These engines offer features such as entity-component systems, modern rendering pipelines, and flexible scripting languages, which can make game development faster and more efficient.

Question 4: How does Rust compare to other game development languages?

Rust offers similar performance benefits as C++ but with added safety features that make it less prone to memory-related bugs and errors. Compared to C# or Java, Rust offers better memory safety and concurrency support. Compared to Python, Rust is better suited for games that require more processing power.

Question 5: Is Rust the future of game development?

It’s difficult to predict the future of game development, but Rust is a promising language for game development due to its performance, safety, and scalability features. While it may not become the dominant language for game development, it will likely continue to be an important tool for developers prioritizing performance and reliability in their games.