Rust began as an open world hitman-game

Facepunch Studios wildly popular Early Access game, Rust, began life as anything other than the survival experience that it is today.

According to producer Garry Newman, the team started working on a Hitman-style game with the same kind of open, free, sandbox gameplay as something like Grand Theft Auto.

The project went under the working title of Cash 4 Kills and the idea was that the player would be able to move freely in a giant world with various tasks to perform, including assassinating high-ranking politicians. In an interview with PCGamesN Newman said the following:

"The one thing we do not like about the latest Hitman games is that the game seems to be about finding out what the level designer wants you to do, rather than just working out the best place to kill a guy. We wanted it to be all free-form, with bullet entry stats, bonuses for clean kills and for being unspotted, shareable replays, then cash rewards in a backend That you could use to buy new weapons, etc. So you'd only get one chance at a kill and if you fucked it up you could not replay, you'd have to wait for the next contract with your real email address."

Sounds very interesting...