Old School RuneScape: The 2007 Backup That Became Gaming's Biggest Comeback

Most games die when their players stop showing up. Old School RuneScape was born because its players refused to leave the past behind.

In February 2013, Jagex did something no big MMO studio had done before. It found a backup of RuneScape dated 10 August 2007, asked its community whether anyone actually wanted to play it again, and promised to build a separate game if enough people said yes. Guinness World Records later certified the result as the first MMO to release an "old school" version of itself. Today that experiment is the main event: Old School RuneScape (OSRS) hit an all-time high of 257,491 players online on 1 September 2025, launched its first brand-new skill, Sailing, in November 2025, and is headlining the franchise's 25th-anniversary year.

This is the story of how a forgotten save file became one of the most successful MMOs on the planet.

RuneScape started life in 2001 as a Java game that ran in a web browser. It was cheap, accessible and enormous for its time, and Jagex kept updating it year after year. By the late 2000s, the game was steadily changing: new graphics, new systems and eventually a full combat redesign that many long-time players felt had turned the RuneScape they loved into something else.

Plenty of MMOs face that tension. Blizzard famously told fans in 2013 that they did not really want old-version servers (we cover that saga in our WoW Classic feature). Jagex took the opposite bet.

The poll that built a game

On 13 February 2013, Jagex announced the idea. On 15 February, the vote opened. The rules were unusual and very public, with tiers tied to the number of votes:

• 50,000 votes: the old version would exist, but cost members an extra $15 a month.
• 250,000 votes: the extra fee would drop to $5.
• 500,000 votes: no extra fee at all.
• 750,000 votes: no extra fee, and a free-to-play section open to everyone.

The poll closed on 1 March 2013 with 449,351 votes, short of the half-million mark. But the game had already opened its doors in early access on 22 February 2013, with more than 50 servers and a free month of membership for voters. Day one drew 50,000 players online within four hours. On 7 June 2013, Jagex confirmed that Old School would stay free of any extra fee anyway.

The 70% rule

What made Old School different, and what still makes it different, is that the poll never went away. Jagex turned it into the game's constitution. Major changes go to an in-game vote, and they pass only with 70% approval. To vote, a player needs a total level of at least 280, which keeps the process in the hands of people who actually play.

That rule is why OSRS feels both frozen and alive. It has grown enormously since 2013, with new quests, bosses, raids and whole regions, yet every addition has to persuade a supermajority of the community that it fits the 2007 spirit. Updates the community rejects simply do not happen.

The system has also delivered some of the game's biggest turns. In 2015, a poll on opening a permanent free-to-play version passed with 85.9% support, and full free-to-play arrived on 19 February 2015 for the game's second birthday.

From desk to pocket, and a new record

The next leap was mobile. Old School launched on Android and iOS on 31 October 2018, and because it shares servers with the PC version, players could suddenly train a skill on the bus and finish a boss fight at home.

That reach shows up in the numbers. In December 2024, OSRS set a new concurrent-player record of 231,719. On 3 August 2025, it climbed to 240,756. Then, at the start of September 2025, it reached the current high of 257,491. In January 2026, Jagex marked RuneScape's 25th year by noting OSRS had passed 250,000 concurrent players, a figure that would have sounded absurd in 2013, when the whole project hinged on whether half a million people would even click a button.

Sailing: the first new skill

For years the community argued about whether OSRS should ever get a new skill. Skills are the backbone of RuneScape, and adding one changes everything from the economy to how people plan their accounts. The polls finally said yes, and Sailing arrived on 19 November 2025 for members.

Jagex billed it as the game's first new skill, and it brought back something veterans had not seen since 2013: a fresh race to level 99, complete with a Sailing skill cape for the first players to max it. At level 30, players unlock three Barracuda trails, timed sea routes that act as early goals.

Sailing is also the spine of the 2026 roadmap, which lined up boat combat improvements for spring, a broader Sailing combat update, a second Tortugan quest and a player-designed island for summer, and a new Barracuda Trial for autumn. Jagex has even teased a future "sea expansion".

RS25: a franchise with three faces

The 25th-anniversary programme, RS25, shows how much the franchise has changed. Jagex now runs three games for three audiences: Old School RuneScape, the modern RuneScape (often called RS3) and the survival spin-off RuneScape: Dragonwilds, which passed one million units sold in 2025.

For the modern RuneScape, the biggest 2026 change is about trust. Following a community vote in November 2025, Jagex began removing Treasure Hunter, the paid loot-box style system many players had complained about for years. CEO Jon Bellamy described the current player base as "the largest and most active RuneScape community in our history."

The anniversary also took RuneScape offline. Jagex scheduled Deadman: All-Stars Live for the Rosemont Theatre near Chicago on 20 June 2026, its first Deadman competition in the United States, and booked RuneFest for 3-4 October 2026 at the Birmingham NEC with room for 6,000 fans, double the 2025 event.

By the numbers

• 10 August 2007: the date of the backup OSRS is built on
• 449,351: votes cast in the 2013 poll
• 70%: approval needed for a poll to pass
• 31 October 2018: mobile launch on Android and iOS
• 257,491: record concurrent players (1 September 2025)
• 19 November 2025: Sailing, the first new skill, goes live
• 300 million+: RuneScape player accounts created, according to Jagex

Why it matters

Old School RuneScape is the clearest proof that an MMO's community can be its best designer. The 70% rule slows things down, and it has frustrated developers and players alike, but it also gives players something rare in live-service games: a guarantee that the world they love will not change behind their backs.

It also changed the industry. Without Old School's success, it is hard to imagine Blizzard's WoW Classic, Nexon's MapleStory Classic World (our report) or NC's Lineage Classic (our report). "Classic" servers are now a whole category, and OSRS was the template.

What to play next

• New to RuneScape? Start with OSRS free-to-play on PC or mobile. It is the most authentic way to see why people voted to bring it back.
• Want the modern take? RuneScape on Steam is free to start and now has a clearer, Treasure Hunter-free direction.
• Love the idea of player-run worlds? Read our feature on EVE Online's greatest wars and heists, another game where players write the history.

WGC's take: Old School RuneScape is the comeback story the MMO genre needed: a studio that listened, a community that voted, and a 2007 save file that refused to stay buried.