Old-School RuneScape Hits Record User Highs

RuneScape isn't one of the first MMORPGs ever made, but it sure feels like it. It's been around for close to two decades and has been "rebooted" at least three times to date. With every reboot, it leaves the old version "behind" for players to enjoy if they wish, which means there are actually two RuneScapes out there: "RuneScape", and "Old-School RuneScape", which is the one most people my age are probably most familiar with, since they closed down RuneScape Classic.

As you can guess, generally speaking, more people are playing the shiny new RuneScape than the old-school one, but it was announced over the weekend that this changed recently: on Sunday, 157,445 people were playing old-school RuneScape, which is not only more than the newer version, is actually a record high for old-school RuneScape and its seven-year history.

So now you're probably wondering why it was suddenly more popular. Did it pull an "Among Us" and suddenly become a Twitch hit? Did some new exploit get discovered that drew players in? Did it get a new Battle Royale mode?

None of the above, actually, but the "new battle royale" mode is a close guess.

Rather, Jagex, the developer, introduced something called "League Play", which is sort of a PvE "race". Here's how they describe it:

“an alternate game mode that features players starting fresh to compete in limited-time leagues. Each league has a different set of rules that is designed to uniquely challenge players. Leagues have hundreds of tasks that can be completed to earn points which can in turn be used to unlock relics that offer varying buffs for the duration of the league.”

So instead of just chilling, burying bones and chopping trees, players have a huge checklist of stuff to do, which will buff them to make other tasks easier. I could see that being fun, actually, so it's little surprise people flocked over to try it out.