RuneScape developer Jagex has canceled RuneScape Reignited, a recently announced and hugely controversial plan to soft-reset the MMO by spinning up forked servers with fresh economies and characters, after widespread player criticism.
Jagex only just apologized for neglecting players and announced plans to pause and revisit this whole idea. Now, RuneScape Reignited is well and truly dead.
"It is clear that we missed the mark on this, and so we are not moving forward with it," a blog post from associate creative director Mod Ryan reads. "Our goal is to see Runescape grow again, with returning players coming back and new players joining, but never at the expense of our existing community."
The main complaint with Reignited, as acknowledged and summarized by Jagex, was that the players who've kept RuneScape alive all these years would be forced to leave their accounts behind if they wanted to enjoy the fresh Reignited servers which have not been tainted by all the microtransaction sludge that Jagex has been trying to scrub out.
It was positioned as a glorious refresh, but veterans felt left behind and worried that this version of the game would only split an already fairly small audience. People also complained about needing yet another membership subscription for a new account, as RuneScape subs don't cover multiple characters in the way that World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14 subs do.
"We received a ton of different perspectives from all of you, and we truly appreciate everyone sharing their views," says Mod Ryan. "It is super important to us because the last time we didn't listen to player feedback, combat changed forever. And it has taken us over a decade to recover from that."
Mod Ryan is, of course, referring to the Evolution of Combat (EOC) update which ultimately split RuneScape into two games. Overnight in November 2012, the bones of the game changed dramatically, with Jagex crowbarring in a more World of Warcraft-like skill system that caused many players to quit. (As you may have deduced, I was among the quitters!)
As a result, we now have Old School RuneScape, which has revived and iterated on the RuneScape MMO that we had before EOC, and what's now known as RuneScape 3, which is what was incubating the Reignited project. Somewhat confusingly, RuneScape 4 was just announced.
Not wanting a repeat of EOC, but still very much wanting to grow the RuneScape audience and attract new players in the way that Reignited might have, Mod Ryan says, "I truly believe that December remains a fantastic time to start or continue your journey in RuneScape."
"So we're still going to open the gates on December 2nd with a 10 day free trial that runs for 10 days between December 2nd and December 12th," he adds. "New characters, or any character that on December 2nd has not been in membership since the 2nd of June, will be able to freely access RuneScape Members worlds and content during the 10 day period."
The rest of the RuneScape 2027 roadmap, which Mod Ryan worries was "overshadowed" by Reignited blowback, remains untouched.
"Now I'll round off by saying that the future of RuneScape is still extremely bright," he concludes. "RuneScape will always be built for and defined by its community. So please keep letting us know when you feel we're getting it wrong and shout with that same energy when you think we're getting it right too."
The early response to this particular cancellation appears positive overall, but not universally. Some people are understandably disappointed to miss out on a new day-one boom via Reignited, but crowds of veteran players have praised Jagex for listening to the community and acting quickly and decisively.
Especially since the appointment of new CEO Jon Bellamy, Jagex has been loudly pushing to clean up RuneScape and bring it closer to the popularity of Old School RuneScape, which attracts many more players.
