RuneScape is coming to Steam

(Image credit: Jagex)

First launched as a browser game in 2001, RuneScape was the first MMO a lot of people tried. It was their first experience of being ganked by high-level players, their first time collecting an armor set, and their first time being scammed out of the armor they'd just collected.

It's changed a lot in that time, gaining raids and dinosaurs and enough alterations that Old School RuneScape was created for those who wanted to preserve the way it used to be. And now, RuneScape is coming to Steam.

It'll have the usual raft of achievements, badges, and trading cards that comes with a modern Steam game and you'll be able to link an existing RuneScape account to carry on playing with an existing character.

According to RuneScape executive producer Mod Warden, future changes will include "improving the early game experience, onboarding and readability" as well as optimising the UI "from refining text, content, interaction and hitbox sizes, to engine improvements and stability that support flexibility across the widest array of possible display sizes." Some of that's about preparing for the launch of RuneScape's mobile version next year, but the updates are intended to improve things on both platforms.

RuneScape's Steam version launches on October 14, and Old School RuneScape will follow it in 2021.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.