Old School Runescapesurpassed 200,000 players last weekend, which isn’t quite as high as its initial peak back in 2024, but an impressive number nonetheless. Some of those accounts are almost certainly bots, but give or take a few thousand and there are still a lot of peoplegrinding away in a gamethat was first released way back in 2013, based on a game that was released in 2007.
This isn’t some sort of flurry of nostalgia, either. Player numbers have been steadily increasing year-on-year, which suggests natural growth rather than just a sudden trend. The Runescape reddit is full of players saying they’re checking out the game for the first time - and I guess the question is, where have you all been for the last 20 years?
Just A Bit Of That Runescape Magic
My friend Jordan was the first to show me Runescape after school one day, probably in 2009 or 2010. I can’t remember exactly because those days are hazy now, and I was playing a tonne of games at the time. Jordan billed the game as an MMO, which is a genre that I didn’t have much experience with at the time. I’d played the hell out of Adventure Quest Worlds, but that was about it.
I watched as he showed me his character, using magic spells, wearing fancy capes, interacting with other players, baking bread, killing rats, and exploring what seemed like an enormous world. I was hooked. 15 years later and the game is still full of that same sense of scale and wonder. There is something infinitely charming about its dated graphics and slower pace. It’s not for everyone, but after all this time, the game is still receiving updates and is now one of the deepest and richest games you can find.
Jagex continues to update Old School Runescape. Most updates are done in tandem with the community, and regular events and new quests are enough to keep those experienced players busy between larger, more significant content updates. The most recent update package comes to an end on July 23 with Varlamore: The Final Dawn, marking a series of expansions that have spanned over a year and a half.
The game is already enormous, but it keeps getting bigger.
There’s Nothing Else Like Old School Runescape
The closest comparison I can make in terms of content depth and cross-decade support is World of Warcraft, which saw its own popular resurgence over the past couple of years. It’s exactly these players that are driving the modern growth of OSRS. Popular WoW streamers, mostly part of the Only Fangs guild, have recently started playing Runescape because WoW is growing a little stale. This is the natural cycle of MMOs - play until content dries up and then move onto another thing. OSRS is the beneficiary of a slower pace of content on other MMOs.
These streamers drive a lot of traffic to Runescape, possibly from a younger audience who never had the chance to check the game out two decades ago. Although people might be put off by the graphics and its archaic ‘tick’ system (which is a 0.6 second long internal clock system that dictates every action, whether that be fighting, eating, or cooking), that all falls to the side once they start to see the sheer amount of content in the game.
Content in Runescape is eternal. By that I mean, even with new updates, older content doesn’t suddenly become obsolete. We’ve seen a lot of this in MMOs over the years, particularly in modern ones that put emphasis on ‘fear of missing out’ mechanics and time-gated dungeons and raids. There is really none of this in OSRS. You can play totally at your own pace. The content will always be there, it’s going nowhere.
Runescape is also all-encompassing. It’s the ultimate ‘number go up’ game. Grinding is satisfying to the point of obsession. Once you start to reach those upper break points, at around 90 skill and beyond, the game becomes a test of your will more than anything. At no point does the game say, if you aren’t X skill level, you can’t do Y. The challenge is only with yourself. It’s one of the few games left that rewards players based on their time, commitment, and skill, rather than buying fancy skins on a Battle Pass track.
Old School Runescape will have its time in the sun. We might hit 250k, or even 300k players, over the summer, and then the players will wilt again. But the game will continue chugging on in the background, with new content, new updates, and although this might be some way off yet, maybe a brand-new version someday.
