Why are extra players than ever enjoying the 2000s traditional RuneScape?

Imagine calling your folks, ordering a pizza, and opening up RuneScape in your PC.

Lots of people round my age would possibly learn these phrases and be immediately thrown again to the times of dial-up web, MSN Messenger and Napster.

But earlier than you instinctively kind the letters “a/s/l” in your keyboard, get this – for lots of people, that is hardly the stuff of distant reminiscences.

In 2025 RuneScape – the net recreation the place gamers can go on quests with their mates which first launched approach again in 2001 – noticed an inflow of gamers.

Its variety of paid members grew to “well over a million” in keeping with the corporate, a rise of 30% in comparison with the beginning of the 12 months.

Many hundreds of thousands extra play without spending a dime, and the agency noticed a historic milestone in 2025 – with a whopping 240,000 logging in on the similar time, probably the most simultaneous gamers within the recreation’s 25-year historical past.

To put that into context, on the time of writing, solely three video games accessible on the net retailer Steam have extra present gamers.

Of course, that top was a peak moderately than a continuing – it at present stands at round 175,000 – but it surely exhibits simply how a lot folks have proven an curiosity in returning to the medieval land of Gielinor.

Back within the 2000s, RuneScape made a reputation for itself as an early massively multiplayer on-line (MMO) recreation which might be performed in an online browser with out downloading something to your laptop.

It grew quickly by means of word-of-mouth thanks partly to its mixture of social interplay, accessible gameplay and humour.

Twenty 5 years after it first got here out, it’s now two totally different video games.

There’s RuneScape (which followers usually discuss with as RS3), a contemporary tackle the traditional recreation.

Then there’s Old School RuneScape, which seems and looks like the unique – maybe as a result of it started with a snapshot of the sport precisely because it was in 2007, and has since grown with new areas, characters and issues to do.

And over the two-and-a-half many years since its preliminary launch on-line, the sport has fallen behind different MMOs. It’s estimated that World of Warcraft is performed by greater than one million folks each day, whereas Final Fantasy XIV is up there, too.

But the sport’s maker Jagex has not forgotten its roots.

“There’s a term called ‘RuneScapiness’ which is a little bit hard to nail down,” recreation designer Molly Mason advised the BBC.

“But I think part of that at least is the British humour that’s reflected in our games.

“The Monty Pythonesque, that kind of stuff.”

She said she believed the game was drawing people in because it’s “community-oriented” – something the studio’s new boss Jon Bellamy agreed with as he comes to the end of his first year in charge.

A player himself, he has made several big changes since taking the role in March.

“I got here in like many gamers of 20 years would and thought, what are the issues that I’d actually simply like to sort out,” he said.

Those changes include trying to deal with the cheaters and “bots” – machines pretending to be players to level up characters without effort – and doing something almost unthinkable in modern games.

RuneScape players were given a vote on whether to get rid of many of its in-game purchases – something often annoying for gamers, but a big revenue stream for developers.

Unsurprisingly, gamers overwhelmingly voted to ditch the mechanic, and it has certainly bought the new boss a lot of goodwill.

“This is what truly investing into the sport’s progress seems like,” one anonymous fan said on Reddit, with another describing the management team with a fire emoji.

But while fans may be happy, it is not without risk.

“This comes with actual monetary ramifications,” Jon stated.

“But with a 10-year or 15-year view for the enterprise and for the sport, my intestine says that is completely the suitable factor to do.”

“The guess that we’re taking is starting with the elimination of microtransactions after which greater than a 12 months’s price of integrity-based upgrades.”

These sorts of moves have brought players to the game, with Jon saying Old School RuneScape was “the fastest-growing MMO on the planet proper now”, something even he felt was “weird” given the game is two decades old.

The updates include a lot of things fans have asked for, such as improving the user interface, making combat more consistent, and removing systems that make people feel pressured to log in every day.

The players I spoke to were excited by the changes.

“The participant base are very vocal with what we would like and what we do not need,” stated Megan, who streams the game to her 20,000 followers on Twitch.

“They hearken to us and I feel that is why it is so profitable nonetheless, as a result of it is not only a recreation that’s made for us – it is sort of a recreation that is made with us.”

But she said the thing that brings people back is the other players.

“You can simply meet so many like minded folks and you’re feeling such as you already know them since you share such a ardour that you just each have,” she stated.

“I do know lots of people which have met their husband, their spouse by means of RuneScape – one among my finest mates moved from Australia to be along with her boyfriend in England and so they’ve been collectively for 12 years.”

She was not the only person I spoke to who told me this kind of story.

Ryan, known as The RS Guy to his 80,000 subscribers on YouTube, stated he met his spouse by means of the sport.

“It’s humorous as a result of that is such a commonplace factor in RuneScape,” he said – adding both of the people who edit his videos met their partners through the game too.

“I perceive how loopy that sounds to somebody outdoors of that world.

“For me, we started off our relationship by playing RuneScape together every day for a good year, and then we started dating, we got engaged and yeah, now we’re married.”

Ryan performs RS3 – a extra fashionable tackle the net recreation which has higher graphics and extra options.

He stated he thinks persons are coming again to it as a result of it is not excellent – however moderately it has “grown up” alongside its gamers.

“It’s gone through its ups, it’s gone through its downs,” he stated.

“It almost feels a little bit like the relationship someone may have with a family member.

“Even if you’re at odds with the sport, you’ve so a few years of expertise and so many moments in time to fall again on that have been that have been nice, core reminiscences or have been foundational – probably even to your improvement as an individual.”

And that relationship is, at least to Molly, at the heart of why people keep coming back.

“This is the sport that is been with folks for many years,” she stated.

“We have a phrase for RuneScape saying you by no means stop, you simply take a break – the sport will at all times be there for you, your character will at all times be there for you.

“I think all of those reasons kind of added together make RuneScape what it is today.”