RuneScape: Dragonwilds
Apr 15, 2025·Jagex
About this game
I'll be upfront about my relationship with RuneScape. I played the browser version obsessively as a teenager, cutting wood and fishing trout for hours in what I can only describe now as extremely meditative compulsive behaviour. Then I grew up, the game evolved in directions that didn't grab me, and I quietly moved on. So when Jagex announced they were making a survival crafting game set in the RuneScape universe, my first reaction was bemused curiosity rather than genuine excitement. A survival game with RuneScape DNA? What does that even look like? Turns out it looks genuinely good - and the numbers agree. Since entering Early Access on Steam in April 2025, RuneScape: Dragonwilds has surpassed one million sales and currently sits at Very Positive overall on Steam with 81% of its nearly 20,000 user reviews positive. For a game that seemed like a left-field experiment from a studio primarily associated with ageing MMOs, that's a quietly remarkable achievement. The full 1.0 launch is coming September 15, 2026, simultaneously across PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and - confirmed just yesterday at the Nintendo Direct - Nintendo Switch 2. That last one is particularly notable because this marks the first time in RuneScape's 25-year history that any RuneScape title has launched on console at all. Jagex are clearly treating this as a proper franchise expansion rather than a side project. The premise is set on Ashenfall - a forgotten continent in the wider RuneScape universe of Gielinor, isolated and unmapped, where wild Anima magic has fractured the landscape and ancient dragons have awakened under the command of Kuldra, the God-Eater Dragon Queen. You wash up on this continent with nothing, and the loop is immediately familiar to anyone who's played Valheim, Grounded, or similar titles: gather resources, build shelter, craft better tools, develop skills, push deeper into increasingly hostile territory, and eventually confront the threats that want you dead. But the RuneScape-specific twist on this formula is where it gets interesting. Skills - the backbone of RuneScape's identity for two and a half decades - are woven directly into the survival loop. Levelling Woodcutting, Mining, Crafting, and Magic aren't just numbers going up. They unlock actual abilities: a spectral axe that fells trees instantly, spells that explode ore veins on contact, the ability to conjure fish from lakes. The magic system in particular turns mundane survival tasks into something genuinely playful, and the unlocks feel earned rather than arbitrary. Progression carries across sessions and between friends' worlds, so if you hop into a co-op game with up to three others, you're not starting over - your character comes with you. The 1.0 launch bundles in everything Jagex has added through Early Access alongside two significant new content drops arriving with full release. The Scorned Wilderness update introduces the final raid against Kuldra herself, described as the culmination of everything the game has been building toward. The Umbral Sands expansion - arriving during summer 2026 as a pre-launch update - adds another region to Ashenfall alongside new enemies, gear, and questlines. Console players jumping in on September 15 will have access to all of this from day one, which is the right approach given how much content has been built up over the Early Access period. The soundtrack is also worth mentioning specifically - reorchestrated versions of classic RuneScape music alongside hours of brand new compositions, and if you have any nostalgia for the original game's memorable audio, it hits in ways that are genuinely difficult to explain without just playing it. I was sceptical about this one. A survival crafting game wearing RuneScape clothes felt like an unlikely pitch. But the player response during Early Access has been consistent and positive, the development updates have been frequent and shaped by community feedback, and what Jagex is delivering in the 1.0 package looks like a genuinely complete experience. September 15 feels like the moment this gets the wider audience it's been quietly earning.
