Today marks the 18th anniversary of the original launch of RuneScape back in 2001, and alongside this momentous occasion developer Jagex has announced another major milestone: The series has hit an all-time high in terms of paid subscribers and monthly active users. And what is the catalyst for pushing the series into this new territory? According to the company it has been the 5 million installs of the recently-released Old School RuneScape (Free) on mobile as well as the current beta testing of RuneScape proper on mobile that has brought in an influx of new players and subscribers. RuneScape launched as a browser game back in 2001 and has obviously evolved a ton over the past two decades, but some of the game’s earliest and most hardcore users preferred “the way things were" so in 2013 Jagex released Old School RuneScape, which aimed to provide an experience that was closer to how the game was in 2007 but still offered some modern conveniences. They maintain Old School RuneScape simultaneously alongside RuneScape proper, with the former arriving on mobile this past October and the latter slated for a mobile release this year.

While there have been several MMORPGs on mobile over the years, there really hasn’t been anything that comes close to the scope of Old School Runescape. It’s really remarkable. We loved the game in our review from October and felt that it was such a tremendously interesting experience that we included it on our short list of Game of the Year candidates for 2018. As the name implies though, this is a decidedly old-school experience and the learning curve for those that aren’t well-versed in MMORPGs can be a bit steep. To help combat this, Jagex has put together an excellent video tutorial series for newbies which should go a long way in helping you to get started. It’s definitely a game that’s worth checking out and we’ll be continuing to enjoy Old School Runescape as well as looking forward to the mobile release of RuneScape proper hopefully in the not too distant future.