Rust dev announces "tennis crossed with Street Fighter" prototype Deuce

The developer of Rust has revealed a new game prototype that it describes as "tennis crossed with Street Fighter".

Deuce is one of several projects in development at Facepunch Studios, the outfit behind popular Early Access title Rust and Garry's Mod.

It's also the developer's second new project to be announced this week, following the reveal of arcade space shooter Riftlight.

"Deuce is an arcade style tennis game with a focus on unique characters and courts," programmer Ian James explained in a new blog post.

"So far I've got four special moves working to some degree. These are: Ice (freezes opponent on returning the ball), Tornado (sends the ball flying in a random direction), Teleport (switches the ball position mid flight) and Fireball."

Early character designs show a Mexican character in a sombrero or luchador mask and a hillbilly American with a shotgun.

Each character is planned to have their own matching location. One piece of artwork shows off a tennis court surrounded by rusting trailers (presumably the hillbilly then?).

But word of Deuce's announcement will do nothing for the Rust fans concerned that Facepunch was already diverting too many resources away from its sandbox survival project.

Facepunch boss Garry Newman previously clarified to Eurogamer that only a fraction of Rust's revenue had gone towards developing prototypes this year - and that only five of Facepunch's 25 staff members had been taken off Rust to work on other things.

"Does this mean GMod, Rust and Riftlight are cancelled?" one commenter asked today, upon reading of Deuce's announcement.

"And Half-Life 3 sorry," Newman replied.