Jagex RuneFest announcement reveals Unreal MMO plans

Birmingham, England: Jagex closed out its annual RuneFest convention on Saturday with the franchise's biggest news of the weekend: a fourth mainline MMO is in development. The game is currently called RuneScape 4, or RS4 for short, and it is being built on Unreal Engine, a first for the series. The Jagex RuneFest announcement drew one of the loudest reactions of the weekend from the crowd at the NEC, where the studio also celebrated the franchise's twenty-fifth anniversary. Development is still at an early stage, Jagex stressed, and the studio has not announced a release window, platforms, or gameplay specifics. The Jagex RuneFest announcement nevertheless answers a question fans have asked for years: whether the studio would ever build a brand-new RuneScape from scratch.

From expansion to standalone MMO

According to Gamereactor, which covered the onstage reveal, the project started as a planned expansion for the survival game RuneScape: Dragonwilds. After the team built prototypes and gathered player feedback, its scope kept growing. Jesse America, the executive producer of Dragonwilds, said during the event that assessing those prototypes and designs pushed the studio to commit to a full standalone MMO instead. Players had asked for a more traditional MMO take on the survival game's world, with the persistent servers, large player populations, and player-to-player trading that define Jagex's games. The Jagex RuneFest announcement framed the pivot as a direct response to that demand.

What the trailer shows, and what it does not

Jagex showed a brief teaser trailer with an art style the studio describes as a hybrid of the current mainline game and Old School RuneScape. The footage shows a medieval town in a verdant valley beneath floating islands, an adventurer riding a dragon that is attacked by a three-headed dragon, and a wizard welcoming a new arrival to the city. The Jagex RuneFest announcement confirmed the game is being built on Unreal Engine, though it has not said which version of the engine. Gamereactor noted this makes it the first RuneScape project built on Epic's technology, following Dragonwilds, which already runs on it.

What remains unknown is longer than what is confirmed. Jagex has not announced a release date, a platform list, a price, or details about combat, skills, progression, or monetization, The Daily Game News reported. The studio says the project is still a few years out at the earliest. One open question matters more than the rest to veteran players: whether years of character progress will carry over. The current game inherited progression from its predecessor, but Jagex has not said whether the new game will do the same. The Jagex RuneFest announcement kept expectations deliberately low on timing.

The numbering follows the series' long pattern. The original game launched in 2001, a fully three-dimensional sequel followed in 2004, Old School RuneScape preserves the game as it stood around 2007, and RuneScape 3 overhauled the art and systems in 2013. The Daily Game News noted that Old School remains by far the company's most successful game. Over twenty-five years the franchise has grown into one of the longest-running live games in the industry, which is why the reveal of a fourth mainline entry landed the way it did with the RuneFest crowd.

The MMO was not the only RuneFest reveal. Polygon reported that Jagex is developing an animated RuneScape series with Lyrical Animation, a division of Lyrical Media, in partnership with creator Charlie White, known online as MoistCr1TiKaL. A Jagex PR representative told Polygon that White is a maxed-out player and a big fan of the games, and that the show is "a passion project for everyone involved." More details are expected next year. Separately, the Jagex RuneFest announcement confirmed that RuneScape Reignited launches December 2 with a fresh economy and separate hiscores, and that Dragonwilds gets a roadmap running through 2027, starting with the Luminance update this winter and continuing with the Blood Crystal Saga.

For now, the Jagex RuneFest announcement gives the RuneScape community its clearest picture yet of the franchise's future: a new game being built from the ground up, a television adaptation on the way, and a full year of content mapped out for the games players already love. Jagex has promised more details as development continues, and the RuneFest crowd's reaction suggested fans are willing to wait for them.

Sources: Gamereactor, The Daily Game News, Polygon