[johnnyanmac]

>I even wonder if it's necessarily a better choice than modern C++ for someone starting a new project.

C++ has decades of infrastructure, and is still the standard for games, so it's almost certainly not the better choice if your goal is shipping.

It's arguably better for best practices and may be a standard in the far future, but you're going down an untrodden path if you make that choice. you'll be spending just as much, if not more time fighting your tools than making a game. (unless you're comfortable with the few stable-ish Rust game engines).