Jeff Kaplan loves Rust. The former Overwatch lead reckons that Rust shows the absolute best that PvP games have to offer, which is why he's logged over 5,000 hours in it. While Kaplan's love of genre is part of the inspiration behind his new survival game, The Legend of California, you won't see much influence from Rust's brutal PvP here. In fact, his work on World of Warcraft might be a more relevant point of comparison.
"I have always been a huge fan of the survival genre," Kaplan says in an interview with noclip_2. "In particular, I have one favorite game, which is Rust. I've played Rust for over 5,000 hours. The game that we're making is not like Rust in many ways. Rust is really like probably the pinnacle of PvP games. Anybody who's played a lot of Rust knows what I'm talking about. It's the ultimate month-long battle royale."
