Today, Jagex announced that it will bring the world of Runescape into a new genre: Survival. The developers have revealed Runescape: DragonWilds, a cooperative open world survival game that can be accessed early this spring.
DragonWilds takes place in Ashenfall, a new continent within the Runescape Universe. There, one or four players can work together to learn new skills, build camps, become stronger and survive against powerful enemies, including many dragons. Ashenfall has two regions, five unique biomes, and more may be added after a later release. While Ashenfall is not on the same continent, most of Runescape is done properly, Runescape fans will find a lot of familiarity in the world, including places that may resemble familiar places of Runescape itself, such as the Wizard’s Tower or a specific castle…
The monsters may seem familiar, but they have a twist. While we still see rats, dragons, trolls, cows, and other creatures that we remember from Runescape, Ashenfall’s Wild Magic distorts these creatures into a strange, natural-filled version of themselves, fused with a new look with plants, thorns and other wild bits.
The core of DragonWilds’ survival is skill development. Yes, it includes classic runoscape activities such as cooking and woodblock prints. These skills allow you to interact with the world in a variety of ways. When I saw some clips from the game at the Game Developer Meeting earlier this month, I used Windroon to look at clips on players and gained the ability to glide across distances through the air. Even more nostalgic was the woodblock skill, which allowed players to line up a row of trees and throw spectra x and cut them down quickly. That’s the movement I was told was called “Ax-Tral projection.”
Runescape: DragonWilds will begin early access on PCs one day this spring, and we look forward to a wider release (including consoles) in 2026. Jagex will be revealing the game in depth on Twitch at 9am on April 15th.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at Passthecontroller. You can find her posts at Bluesky @Duckvalentine.bsky.social. Do you have any tips for the story? Send to [email protected].
