My favourite game of all time whether I like it or not. My RuneScape journey began in 2011 when I played RuneScape for the first time after reading about it somewhere online. I would've been only 9 years old then (yeah, I'm an '02 baby) and I didn't understand the game at all, but I loved to chop down trees and set the logs on fire. I ended up quitting after I died in the wilderness and lost a bunch of my stuff. It wasn't until 2018 when I decided to give RuneScape another try, so I downloaded Old School, made an account, and played f2p for about a hundred hours. It was fun but I never found myself invested enough to try members, so I quit the game again. It was only in early 2024 that I decided to finally try buying membership. I'm not sure what made me want to start playing again, but I did, and as soon as I became a member my whole life changed. In the past two years I've amassed over 3000 hours in Old School RuneScape and it quickly became my favourite game. I neglected every other game I owned just to play OSRS.
Some people don't see the appeal in an old medieval point and click browser game, but you won't know until you've tried it. It's an impeccable game that you can literally play forever. It's so mysteriously enchanting. A lot of the reason it's so alluring is the fact that it's an endless game with an overwhelming amount to do, while still being so conceptually simple. If you like incremental games, the skilling in this feels very similar, though magnitudes slower. Numbers go up and it makes you happy, especially when you hit a really big number. If you don't feel like skilling, you can pvm, or do quests, or pvp, or just hang around and chat, but there's so many different skills and so many different methods of levelling those skills, so you really always have something to do. There's also such a great sense of accomplishment when you achieve something in game, either because it's such a slow grind, or because it's difficult or rare. It's an addictive game. If you try it and you end up liking it, you will put hundreds of hours very quickly. One of the best things about it is that a lot of content in the game allows it to be played as a 'second monitor game', meaning you can play it while you do other things, like chores, browsing the internet or watching a movie, or even working. But don't let that fool you into thinking it's a boring, simple game. It's actually a very intricate game with a lot of mechanical complexity to explore later on, even though the fundamental systems these encounters are based on are really quite simple. You'll learn that at it's core, it's actually a rhythm game. Of course, you don't have to play these difficult late game encounters if you don't want to. That's the beauty of the game, what you do is all up to you.
The community of the game is excellent. A majority of the players are helpful and extremely cordial, and the content creators are fantastic. You will never run out of OSRS content to watch on YouTube. It's some of the freshest, most original content I've seen surrounding any video game. Sure, there are a few toxic players, especially in PvP, and the game has a reputation for scammers and bots running wild, but apart from those, you can meet some really great people on here. The devs are great too, and actually listen to the players. There's even a poll system in game where updates are polled before being introduced, so players have direct input in changes made to the game.
To give you an idea of how 'endless' OSRS really is, I'll just say that in the 13 years the Old School version of the game has been out, not one player has 100% completed it. People have come pretty close after tens of thousands of hours, but no one has finished that collection log. And the updates keep coming. Huge content updates happen a few times per year and they keep things fresh without compromising the old school style of the game. But, the game isn't for everyone. You have to be a certain type of person to play this game. The most important quality you need is perseverance, because it's very grindy. It can feel overwhelming to get into as a new player, but if you stick with it, you'll learn pretty quickly, and like I said, the majority of players are extremely helpful and almost always willing to point a noob in the right direction (and give them a little starter gp if they're feeling generous). The sense of discovery I felt as a new player and first time member is something I really miss, so cherish those early days as much as you can.
The game is a work of art in terms of visuals and music. Nothing else quite evokes the same feeling as walking around the starter areas of the game, listening to the in game music. The quest writing is great too. Each quest (and there's nearly 200 of them) is either its own contained story or a part of a major storyline, and a lot of the lore is genuinely interesting. It's not a bunch of uninspired fetch quests and the quest system overall is more akin to a 90s point and click adventure game. But don't get me wrong, this game isn't just a bunch of 30 year olds who can't let go of the past on a nostalgia trip, it definitely has it's own legs to stand on, because it really is unlike any other MMO experience. Nothing else I've played compares to it. The only thing I DON'T like about the game is the membership cost, which has increased fairly recently, and has gone up a substantial amount over the years. Despite that, it's still the greatest MMO ever, and guess what? It's not dying like all the others!
Here's a list of things I've accomplished in Old School RuneScape in the two years I've been playing on member worlds: 99 Hitpoints, 99 Strength, 99 Agility, 99 Ranged, 99 Cooking, 99 Woodcutting, 99 Runecrafting, 99 Farming, 99 Hunter, and 99 Sailing (which I got like a month after sailing came out), Fire Cape, Quest Cape, Hard CAs done, 8 pets dropped (Abyssal Sire, Giant Mole, Fishing, Mining, Thieving, Runecrafting x2, Duke, Beef), 2200+ total level, thousands of various boss kc
Linux compatiability: RuneLite runs natively, however there is no official native Jagex launcher for Linux, and you must use Bolt Launcher for the time being
Go Back