Old School RuneScape is coming to Steam in February
It was already breaking player records last year
Old School RuneScape, the nostalgic MMORPG spin-off, is coming to Steam on February 24th. Is it fair to call a game that's continuing to grow and expand nostalgic? Probably not.
RuneScape, like any successful MMORPG, changed a lot over its lifespan and a lot of players missed its earlier days. Developers Jagex satisfied those players by launching Old School RuneScape in 2013, and they've added and expanded to it alongside RuneScape ever since.
Last year, Old School RuneScape broke its own records for concurrent players, with over 157,000 players online at one time. That's thanks mainly to its Leagues - short-term competitive events for which players have to create new characters to compete in specific challenges.
It's impressive for a 2013 game (based on a 2007 game) to continue to be so popular, but it's partly as a result of its old-fashioned graphics. RuneScape was once beloved by school children the world over, because it was one of the few games that you could sneakily run on library computers. Now Old School RuneScape will similarly run on just about anything, including rusty old smartphones.
RuneScape itself (New School RuneScape?) launched on Steam last year and has a modest audience. It'll be interesting to see how Old School compares.
Jagex were in the news this past week for having been bought again, this time by a private equity firm, while another company is contesting the sale in court.