Jagex Builds RuneScape 4 Beside the Games Players Already Have

Jagex has begun work on RuneScape 4, an Unreal Engine MMO that will run beside the three Gielinor games already live. The project, shown at RuneFest 2026 in Birmingham on October 3, is still a few years from release, and the studio is already repeating the sentence it learned the hard way: this one is not here to replace the others.

That is a change of habit. Every earlier numbered RuneScape either became the main game or forced a split. This one started as extra content for a survival spin-off, then grew until the company peeled it off as a fourth live product.

A Fourth MMO Arrives With a Temporary Name

On the official reveal page, Jagex is using the working title RS4 and says that may not be the name that ships. The line that matters is the generation count: this is the studio’s fourth RuneScape MMO, built in Unreal Engine and set in Gielinor, with a dedicated promise that Old School RuneScape, RuneScape, and RuneScape: Dragonwilds keep their own teams, roadmaps, and spend.

The show itself was the largest RuneFest yet. Jagex said it brought over 6,000 fans to the NEC in Birmingham, opened with the Manchester Video Game Orchestra, and used the summit to put a concept teaser on stage before the written post went up. The company also says the franchise has welcomed over 300 million player accounts as it marks its 25th year.

The teaser is short on systems and long on place. Jagex has not named platforms, combat rules, skills, membership, or accounts, and it has said those answers are not ready. What it will say now is the setting: Sixth Age Gielinor, starting in Ashenfall, a landmass north-east of the main continent that players first walked in Dragonwilds, years after the Dragon Queen Kuldra was destroyed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vu7c-8SCUc

“We thought long and hard about revealing this project so early,” the studio wrote, because the game is still a few years away. It is telling players now because, in its own words, RuneScape is at its best when it is built with them. More on the world, the team, and how to get involved is promised next year.

Shadows of Ashenfall Became Its Own Game

The origin is less glamorous than a blank-sheet sequel. Jesse America, executive producer on Dragonwilds, told a RuneFest briefing that the work began as a 2027 expansion, referred to in that briefing as Shadows of Ashenfall, after early Dragonwilds players asked for higher player counts, a social hub, other people in the world, Jagex secure servers, and trade.

Dragonwilds is not an MMO. It is a survival and crafting game for one player or a group of up to four, and on 15 September 2026 it became the first RuneScape title on consoles, landing on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 after an 18-month Steam Early Access run that Jagex says sold more than 1.5 million copies. Players liked Ashenfall enough to want the social layer the old games are built on. The team first parked that as a big 2027 drop, almost a version 1.5, because of technical limits and design choices already locked in.

Creative director Rick Turek, known in-game as Mod Rook, prototyped that larger social layer. America said the paper and the first builds did not look like an add-on.

When we saw the very first prototypes and read the designs that they’d brought together, we realized that the game direction of all of this pointed at a completely different scope. We came to the realization that it essentially would be an MMO, and that it deserved its own game.

Jesse America, executive producer, RuneScape: Dragonwilds, RuneFest briefing

He has had to repeat a second point since the reveal. In an interview on October 7 he said Dragonwilds was never a test run for an MMO, and that the approach was not built that way. The crowd reading is still the obvious one: Unreal Engine, Ashenfall, dragons, then a persistent world. America’s version is that player requests for a “typical Jagex game” inside Dragonwilds outgrew the survival box, and the company split the work rather than bolt an MMO onto a four-player craft game.

People who bounced off Dragonwilds because they do not want survival loops are already treating RS4 as the Unreal RuneScape they actually wanted, the same combat and look without the campfire. That hope is running ahead of any combat reveal. Jagex has not said RS4 will play like Dragonwilds, only that it wants the tech lessons from that project and the co-development habits from RuneScape and Old School.

The Last Time Jagex Numbered a Sequel

The company has done this numbering trick before, and the old games paid for it. In 2004 the new 3D client became the live RuneScape. In 2012 a combat rewrite on that live game pushed a huge share of the room into a second client that still prints the money.

HOW JAGEX HAS NUMBERED ITS SEQUELS

1. 2001: Original RuneScape goes live as a browser fantasy MMO.
2. 29 March 2004: RuneScape 2 becomes the main game; the old client is renamed RS-Classic.
3. 20 November 2012: The Evolution of Combat overhauls fighting on the live game, with a new ability bar and a raised combat-level cap.
4. 22 February 2013: Old School RuneScape opens from a 2007 backup after players refuse the new combat as the only option.
5. 15 September 2026: Dragonwilds 1.0 ships on PC and consoles as a separate survival pillar in Unreal Engine.
6. 3 October 2026: RS4 is announced as a fourth MMO, still a few years away, with the live games told to keep going.

When RS2 launched on 29 March 2004, Jagex copied stats onto both clients, moved items onto the new one, renamed RS2 to RuneScape, and parked the original as RS-Classic “as a bit of history” for people who wanted a simpler game that would not keep changing. Classic was a museum with a login screen, not an equal live product with its own roadmap.

The 2012 rewrite was the other pattern. The Evolution of Combat, live on 20 November 2012 after a six-month beta, replaced special attacks with abilities, dual wielding, and an action bar. Plenty of remaining players told Jagex they liked both systems, or that the new one needed work; a large group simply left. Old School RuneScape opened the following February on a 2007 snapshot, and it grew into the busier of the two MMOs. The lesson Jagex now recites in public is the one that split cost it: do not force the next RuneScape down the throat of the last one.

RS4 is the first time the studio has said that out loud at the announcement, before anyone has rolled a character. It is also the first numbered sequel whose seed was not “replace the current client,” but “this survival expansion is secretly an MMO.”

Four Live Games, Four Separate Roadmaps

Call it a family if you want; it is four products that share a map name and little else. RuneScape is about to get a new permanent character type. Old School is opening Menaphos and a new raid. Dragonwilds is adding elves, Prayer, Hunter, and official mods. RS4 is a blank Unreal project that starts in a changed Ashenfall and is supposed to wander, over years, into places players already know.

THE FOUR GIELINOR GAMES NOW ON THE SLATE

America also said the fourth game is a pillar the whole studio will work on together, which sits beside the written promise that the three live games keep dedicated teams. Those can both be true if RS4 is a company-wide build and the live titles are not being stripped for parts. The risk, which the company is not going to put in a press release, is staff time. A fourth forever game is a fourth patch cycle, a fourth economy, and a fourth community that will want polls, roadmaps, and a RuneFest slot.

CEO Jon Bellamy already called Dragonwilds the third pillar when consoles launched in September. RS4 is the fourth. The numbered name still does the old marketing job of sounding like the next RuneScape, even as the copy insists the old ones are staying.

What RS4 Has Confirmed So Far

Jagex has locked a small set of facts and left the rest closed. RS4 is an Unreal Engine MMORPG in early development, set in Sixth Age Gielinor, opening in Ashenfall years after Dragonwilds, designed around integrity, permanent progression, and player-led development, and it will not replace the three live games. Platforms, accounts, membership, combat, skills, and a date are all unsaid, with more promised next year.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The engine: Jagex is building the new MMO in Unreal Engine, the same family of tools used for Dragonwilds, not the old RuneTek client.
• The start point: Play begins in Ashenfall, then is meant to spread into known Gielinor and into new land over time.
• The canon gap: RS4 is set years after Kuldra’s death, so the survival game’s war is backstory, not the same season.
• The design vows: Integrity and permanent progression are named as central, the same slogans now used on the live MMOs after years of extra shop systems.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The ship name: RS4 is a working title for a fourth-generation project, not a promise it will sell as “RuneScape 4.”
• The platforms: PC, console, and mobile have not been named, even though Dragonwilds just proved consoles are on the table.
• The combat: Briefing chatter about action fighting is inference from Dragonwilds, not a system Jagex has shown.
• The business model: Membership, shops, and whether a RuneScape account carries over are all unsaid.

That silence is the point of announcing this early, at least in Jagex’s telling. The studio wants the same co-development loop that now defines Old School, applied before systems harden. It is also cover. A project this thin would look unfinished as a surprise launch trailer; as a years-out flag it can sit on the slide deck while the three live games take the actual dates.

Reignited, Menaphos and the Games That Stay

If you want evidence that the “not a replacement” line is more than a press phrase, look at the rest of the same weekend. Each live game left Birmingham with a calendar that runs through 2027, which is the same year the abandoned Dragonwilds expansion had been aimed at.

THE LIVE GAMES GOT THEIR OWN 2027 MAPS

• RuneScape Reignited, 2 December 2026: A new permanent character type with a remastered Journey, an Adventure Guide, a fresh economy, and new hi scores, plus full access without membership from 2 December to 12 December. The Plugin API is due in October 2026. The 2027 slate is grouped as Hoard of Dragons in January, City of Gnomes, and Secrets of Karamja, plus an Agility rework and a new grandmaster quest.
• Old School, autumn 2026 into 2027: The Fractured Archive raid is dated 20 October 2026. Hardcore Worlds arrive on 4 November 2026. Menaphos is due in 2027 with the master quest Fool’s Gold, a skilling dungeon, and the Soul Altar, alongside a Mining and Smithing rework and more of the Fairytale line.
• Dragonwilds, December into 2028: Luminance in December 2026 adds elves, Prifddinas-inspired building pieces, and Prayer as a prelude to the Blood Crystal Saga. Song of Rebellion in early 2027 brings Hunter, Ailddinas, and the Nos Clan fight; Slayer is on the quarterly list; official modding with CurseForge is due in 2027; The Plundered Gods Saga is dated 2028.

That Dragonwilds list is the tell. The social MMO features got lifted out into RS4, but the survival game did not get parked. It still has monthly and quarterly drops, new skills, and a saga that starts after RS4’s public teaser. Jagex also used the weekend to say work has started on an animated RuneScape adaptation with Charlie White, known as MoistCr1TiKaL, and Lyrical Media, plus 44 Golden Gnome awards for creators. Gielinor is being spread across more formats, not folded into one client.

Jagex Wants Players in the Room Early

The written close on the reveal page reaches back to the start of the series: 25 years ago RuneScape began with a world, a small team, and a community that made it bigger than the plan. The new pitch is the same sentence with Unreal Engine attached. Integrity and permanent progression are on the poster because those are the fights the live games have been having in public. Community co-development is on the poster because Old School turned polling into a habit after 2012.

That does not answer whether a fourth MMO can feel like RuneScape if it is born from a survival expansion and a changed Ashenfall, years after Kuldra, on an engine the old clients do not share. The people who never liked Dragonwilds’ genre are waiting for hubs and trade. The people who have played since the RS2 years are waiting to see if the click, the grind, and the joke texture survive a modern toolset. Jagex will not show that next year as a finished game. It has said it will show the world, the team, and a way in.

Until then the working title does the old numbered-sequel job of gathering a crowd, while the roadmaps for Reignited, Menaphos, and the Blood Crystal Saga are the proof the company is trying not to repeat 2004 or 2012. The next test is whether those calendars still look this full once RS4 needs more than a teaser.