It's worth noting that Rust was partially inspired by the Arma 2 mod DayZ, which used the massive Chernarus map that players often had to explore just to find their bearings - this exploration was generally seen as part of the adventure; friends would spawn in and describe their surroundings when attempting to meet up. In contrast, another similar game was Stranded, which had maps that were so small you wouldn't get lost in them.

In the Rust Legacy era, players turned to websites or saved an image of the map to orient themselves. In October 2014, the Legacy version of the game was replaced with the Experimental version, which now used randomly generated maps - players frequently got lost, because a wipe generally lasted only a few days, so you ended up on a newly generated environment before you had a chance to become familiar with one.

Devblog 59 (on 7th May 2015) was titled "We added hand-held maps". In the Devblog, Garry explained: "You know what would be cool? An in-game map so you can find where you are without using a web-page and a bunch of console commands." This map had a "fog of war" that would only show you the mapped environment for areas you had visited. One player said of the fog-of-war that: "you had to discover the map as you went, and if you killed someone with a map you could find their base by looking at the center of their traveled radius". This was later changed to just show the entire thing without the need for exploration, but some players still found it tedious to have to craft the map - one commented "[it] was pretty annoying having to waste a slot on your hotbar for 5 wood."

A helpful player painted a map, 16th July 2015:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482463424

Devblog 179 (28th Sept 2017) added a Show Map button (by default you pressed G to open it). Helk explained: "The map item was a ridiculous hoop people had to jump through for a feature very few people ended up using. So you can now press G at any time to open the map. The bad news is you can't currently paint on it or craft it. We'll address this in the future if its actually important". I'd argue that many people had used the craftable map.

Opinions were mixed on which system was better - some didn't want to be able to see the map in-game as it would erode the "survival immersion" and the challenge of orienting yourself. If the map was going to be shown in-game, then some players preferred having to atleast craft it, while others found crafting tedious. Some liked the fog-of-war mechanic. Many players admitted that if the map wasn't available in-game then they'd turn to websites to see it (as was commonly done during the Legacy era).

One factor in being able to see a layout of the map is that "everybody goes for the same spots, and plans beforehand". Some players enjoy planning ahead, while some preferred to simply "go and see where the game takes you".

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