Posted on 31st Jul 2026
| 4 Minute Read
Necesse has just received one of its biggest updates since leaving Early Access. Rust & Romance 1.3.0 gives settlers proper personalities, adds dating and partners, opens a new tier 8 Scrapyard Incursion, increases biome sizes, and introduces the Charred Forest.
Existing saves still work, so established groups do not have to abandon the settlements they have spent months building. Fair Games does recommend starting a new world for the full experience, though, which makes sense when some of the update's biggest changes affect world generation and biome sizes.
The first major change is the new personality system. Settlers can now have combinations drawn from 50 different personalities, split between perks and preferences. Perks affect things they are good at, including combat and work, while preferences change what they want from life in the settlement.
Work breaks have also been replaced by recreation time, with six activities settlers can choose from. Together with the new quality-of-life system, this makes recruiting settlers about more than finding the right job title and putting a bed in a room. A well-planned settlement can produce much stronger workers and combat companions.
Romance sits on top of those new relationships. Giving a settler a Pretty Flower starts a series of romance quests which can eventually lead to becoming partners. Players can become partners with settlers or other players, so the system is not limited to solo worlds.
It is a surprisingly substantial addition for a game where settlers used to be defined mainly by their work and equipment. Between personalities, preferences, recreation and dating, the people living in a settlement should now feel less like interchangeable workers standing beside different crafting stations.
The other headline addition is the Scrapyard, a new Incursion available at tier 8 and above. It brings five new enemy types, a new boss, two music tracks and another set of equipment to work towards. New weapons include the Rev Sword, Patchwork Grenadier, Pyromancy and Ignition Key, alongside four Makeshift armour sets.
The Scrapyard boss can also drop six different Bumper Car mounts. They are not exactly the reward anyone would have predicted for a late-game Incursion, but there is now an achievement for driving one at maximum speed, so somebody in every group is going to spend far too much time doing it.
World generation has had an important pass as well. Biomes are larger overall, addressing one of the common complaints following the seamless-world changes in 1.0. The surface can now generate Charred Forest areas containing two new enemies, while Forest, Plains and Swamp Deep Caves can generate rivers.
The Charred Forest comes with its own reasons to explore, including the new Phoenix armour set. Two early-game summon weapons have also been added elsewhere, while the new Transmutation Station lets established characters convert Incursion essences and shards more easily.
There are broader progression changes underneath the new content. Settlement quests and the old tutorial have been replaced by Story Objectives, equipment upgrade requirements have been reorganised around three essence tiers, and four new achievements have been added. The settler command menu has more information and actions too, with a new list available while managing a settlement.
Raiders have been made tougher but slower and less damaging, settlers now have a short hit cooldown similar to players, and several settlement jobs should cancel more reliably when storage, workstations or recipes are removed. Doors and fence gates have also been reworked so they can sit beside one another without constantly rotating into the wrong position.
If you run a Necesse server, update it to 1.3.0 before everyone joins and make sure players are on the same version. You can keep an existing world, but a fresh one is the better choice if your group wants to see the larger biomes and new generation from the beginning.
You can read the complete Necesse Rust & Romance changelog on Steam. If your group wants a world that stays online while everyone gets distracted by settlers, Scrapyard runs and Bumper Cars, our Necesse server hosting page has the current options.
