Several species of fly have lived longer than RuneScape Reignited, a relaunch of one of the oldest MMOs around. It would've seen fresh servers filled with new accounts soft-reset the game while veterans continue playing as they were.
Developer Jagex apologized for and quickly canceled this plan within weeks of its grand RuneFest-side reveal after those veteran players complained that they felt left behind or sidelined in favor of efforts to entice new players.
Many RuneScape fans are relieved to see Jagex act on feedback and preserve the current game, some people are disappointed to miss out on a new account race or just a fresh start, and others seem unclear what the heck Jagex was even trying to do. I spoke to RuneScape creative director Ryan Philpott, known to players as Mod Ryan, to unpack things.
Reignited was set up as a capstone for the Road to Restoration update plan that has seen Jagex, in the past year especially, cut out much of the systemic and monetization rot that reduced RuneScape to a much less popular MMO than its sibling Old School RuneScape. Indeed, part of this plan is to put RuneScape "in a place where it can stand alongside Old School Runescape, as an example," Philpott says.
"We felt that there was a great opportunity," he says of the Reignited planning. "So much is going on inside the game, the game is in the best place it's ever been – or has been for at least 5-10 years – and as part of that, we thought about what a great opportunity there is to open those doors again and allow players to come in."
I used the term relaunch in the interview, and Philpott says he's done the same internally. But "it wasn't just, 'Let's find new players,'" he says. "That wasn't the only goal. The goal was: this is such a great game, how can we break through the wider bubble and put this game on the map?"
The makers of RuneScape want a second chance, in many ways – an opportunity to show players what they believe to be a much healthier and more fun game than RuneScape's reputation would imply. Philpott says what they didn't want is a split in the game, or two parallel versions of RuneScape.
"You mentioned that fork in the game," Philpott responds. "We didn't really consider it that because, ultimately, it's similar to releasing other game modes. Iron Man came out, Group Iron Man, etc. There are other ways to play the game." Reignited was meant to be the same, and Reignited worlds may have been merged with the main worlds eventually, Philpott suggests, but some players read it as a whole new branch that would dilute the game's population and paper over past achievements.
"I think there was a little bit of miscommunication," he adds. "No one was losing anything," but it didn't always feel that way. Some messages got mixed between RuneFest talks, player interpretation, and follow-up blogs from Jagex. The idea was "to share in that moment where it feels like a fresh launch," but players worried that the game they've known, which was only just getting back on its feet, would be upstaged by a new version that never faced the same systemic issues. And in an MMO with this much horizontal account progression, starting fresh means losing a lot.
Philpott says Jagex expected "some pushback," if only because you can't please everyone, but there was "more conversation than I would have anticipated" after the Reignited reveal. He touts the rapid response to that discourse, and Jagex's decision to cancel Reignited, as a sign that the company is better about gauging player opinions before acting, and shows it won't sacrifice the current experience in an effort to grow the player base.
"We're not against changing our minds," he says. "We want to do what's best for the game. It's been here for 25 years because of our players and making these decisions. To make it here for another 25 years is always about making the right calls." With Reignited dead, the next big push will be December 2, which Philpott says is still the second-best time to start RuneScape. The best time, he reckons, is now.
A lot of this comes back to that second chance. Next year, Jagex will focus more on rebalancing and pushing more agile updates – answering the "374 days since we asked for this" Reddit posts.
Philpott maintains that RuneScape is a much better, healthier game than it was even a year or two ago. Working on it now is a "night and day difference in a positive way" compared to those darker times, he says, and though he "would have loved" to remove the likes of Treasure Hunter sooner, it feels "great" to have the game free of so much gunk.
"We will not make those mistakes again," Philpott says. "RuneScape is going to be here for another 25 years and I'm super excited. One, about the end of this year. Two, about next year, And three, about where we're going to go in the next three, five, seven, nine years."
