Prerequisites
Rusteal needs three things on the machine: Unreal Engine 5.8, Rust 1.88 or newer, and the C++ toolchain the engine builds with. The versions below come from the engine’s own requirements.
Linux (x64)
| Dependency | Version | Where from | What for |
|---|---|---|---|
| A C toolchain | any | build-essential (Debian, Ubuntu), gcc (Fedora), base-devel (Arch) | the linker Rust uses (cc) |
| Rust | stable, 1.88 or newer | rustup | installing the rusteal CLI, building your game crate |
| Unreal Engine | 5.8 | Epic’s Linux build (unrealengine.com/linux) or built from source | the game |
The engine brings the rest: the clang toolchain the Unreal Build Tool compiles with and the .NET SDK that runs it.
Windows (x64)
| Dependency | Version | Where from | What for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visual Studio | Community, Professional or Enterprise; 2022 17.8 or newer, or 2026 18.0 or newer | visualstudio.microsoft.com | the C++ compiler the engine uses, and the linker Rust uses |
| Rust | stable, 1.88 or newer, x86_64-pc-windows-msvc | rustup (rustup-init.exe) | installing the rusteal CLI, building your game crate |
| Unreal Engine | 5.8 | the Epic Games Launcher | the game |
Install Visual Studio before Rust: rustup uses its build tools for the MSVC toolchain.
Visual Studio workloads
In the Visual Studio Installer (Modify on an existing install), the Workloads tab needs two workloads:
| Workload | Section | What the engine takes from it |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop development with C++ | Desktop & Mobile | MSVC, the C++ compiler and linker; the Windows SDK |
| .NET desktop development | Desktop & Mobile | the .NET Framework SDK |
Screenshot: the Workloads tab of the Visual Studio Installer with both workloads checked. (images/getting_started/vs_workloads.png)
Then, in the Individual components tab, check that these are selected:
- MSVC v143 x64/x86 build tools 14.44 for Visual Studio 2022, or MSVC x64/x86 build tools 14.50 for Visual Studio 2026. The engine refuses 14.39 to 14.43, 14.44 before 14.44.35211 and 14.50 before 14.50.35723;
- Windows 11 SDK 10.0.22621 (10.0.19041 at least);
- .NET Framework 4.6.2 targeting pack.
Screenshot: the Individual components tab with the MSVC build tools, the Windows SDK and the .NET Framework targeting pack selected. (images/getting_started/vs_components.png)
The Rust host
Rust must use the MSVC host. rustup show prints:
Default host: x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
If your default toolchain is a -windows-gnu one, for another project, it can stay. Set the default host and install the MSVC toolchain:
rustup set default-host x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
rustup toolchain install stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
Then pin it in your game project with a rust-toolchain.toml, or for the directory that holds your projects:
rustup override set stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc --path <dir>
macOS
Rusteal has not been tested on macOS yet.