Install Creator
Creator installs through the Crucible launcher. You install the launcher once, add Creator from its Apps library, and activate your license in the launcher to unlock it. Updates arrive the same way.
Before you start, check System requirements: Creator needs Rust installed through Steam, and the content it copies out of your Rust install needs real disk space.
Install it
Section titled “Install it”- Install the Crucible launcher.
- Buy Creator in the launcher’s Shop tab, or paste a license key you already have in the Account panel. Your license activates in the launcher, and Creator reads it from there.
- Open the Apps library and install Creator.
- Click Launch. Creator opens on its start screen.
Pricing is shown in the launcher’s Shop tab. License keys, how many PCs a license covers, and your account live in the launcher too: see Licenses and account.
Your license
Section titled “Your license”Each time Creator starts, it checks your license before you can use anything. With a valid license the check finishes on its own and the start screen is yours. If you accepted the license agreement in the launcher, Creator does not ask you to accept its own agreement again. When the check fails, Creator shows its license window instead, which says why:
| The window says | What it means |
|---|---|
| ”Enter your license key to activate Crucible Creator.” | No license is saved on this PC yet. |
| ”Your subscription is not active.” | The store answered, and the license is not active now. |
| ”This license does not include Crucible Creator.” | The key is for another Crucible app only, such as Crucible Heightmap. |
| ”Could not verify your license and the offline grace period has ended.” | Creator could not reach the store, and the last successful check is more than 3 days old. |
Paste your key and press ACTIVATE, or use GET A SUBSCRIPTION (it opens the Crucible launcher, or its download page when the launcher did not install this copy) or MANAGE SUBSCRIPTION. QUIT closes Creator. With no connection, Creator keeps working for 3 days from the last successful check. What the check sends is on Your data.
First launch
Section titled “First launch”Creator opens on the start screen with RUST INSTALL empty, and it says so plainly: Creator needs a copy of Rust’s game content before it can render anything. That is the next page, Sync your Rust content, and it is a one-time copy you will wait on once.
CREATE BLANK works before you have synced anything, and gives you an editable blank island with plain terrain colors. Everything that renders Rust’s own textures, prefabs and monuments needs the content first.
Updates
Section titled “Updates”Updates come through the launcher, the same as the install. Two things worth knowing:
- A Creator update does not touch your content snapshot. The snapshot follows your Rust install, not the app, and only changes when you re-sync.
- Your maps are yours. Creator writes standard
.mapfiles wherever you point it, and an update neither moves nor rewrites them. See Where your files live.
Uninstalling
Section titled “Uninstalling”Remove Creator from the launcher’s Apps library. That leaves two things behind on purpose, because they are yours and they are large:
- your maps, wherever you saved them
- the content snapshots under
%LOCALAPPDATA%\RustCreator\content\, which are around 50 GB each
Delete the snapshot folder yourself if you want that space back. Nothing in it is unique: it is a copy of your Rust install, and a re-sync rebuilds it.