As far as true sandbox games go, Rust just might be the best ever made. Featuring a plethora of survival tools, clothing, and weapons, the game is like PUBG meets Minecraft, but with more naked people screaming. The biggest problem with Rust, though, is despite its popularity and selling over 6 million copies, it still hasn’t left early access, and according to the creators, it hasn’t even entered beta.

A few days ago, the head of Facepunch Studios, Garry Newman, posted a blog about Rust finally leaving early access. Coming with this departure were a number of big changes, like the price of the game increasing from $19.99 to $34.99 and the addition of public test servers for new patches. These patches will come in the form of monthly updates and be playable on the testing server, known to the developers as the Staging Branch.

These new changes came after an acknowledgement of how far the game has come in the four years since it opened early access on Steam. Originally, Rust was a zombie-survival title like many others of the time, but after realizing the players enjoyed messing with each other far more than zombies, they have since removed them. The updates over the years have also grown to include more options for building and weaponry, which has mostly just upped the shenanigans of the players.

While this is all exciting news, Newman was quick to temper expectations in the oddest of ways. His thoughts about Rust boarded on the surprising to the somewhat insulting.

While it’s great to hear that Rust will be getting a release date of February 4, it’s a little confusing that Newman has also told players to be willing to pay $34.99 for a game he admittedly describes as entering Alpha. His request not to compare it to other finished games is also similarly worrying because that’s generally what you do when you pay for a game. Cuphead, for instance, retailed at $19.99 for a fully complete game that was seven years in the making. We know Newman told us expressly not to compare Rust, but it seems sort of relevant at this point.

For Newman, who previously created the bizarre and insanely successful Garry’s Mod, Rust might simply be his own personal sandbox, one which he has set an admission fee to enter. Still, it begs the question, will Rust ever get a real release date, and if it does, just how much will that game be?