Old School RuneScape

We rate Old School RuneScape A tier (7.7 out of 10). It is 10/10 in solo play but only 5/10 in combat,: we think nothing in the genre gives one player more to do, and nothing this popular feels this plain in the hands. Jagex's own counter showed 132,640 people playing when we read it on Nov 12, 2026, and MeinMMO reported over 250,000 on Apr 29, 2026. TheLazyPeon put it "straight in the S tier" in his MMORPG Tier List 2026. We stop one tier short: a monthly fee that went from $12.49 to $14.99 in four years and a PvP side with nothing on the 2027 roadmap cost it points.

We think Menaphos opens on time, before July 1, 2027. Jagex's Oct 27, 2026 roadmap dates the city to Spring 2027, and the last big dated promise, The Fractured Archive on Oct 20, 2026, shipped on its day.

Confidence: Likely. Check by: Jul 2027.

6:29 What is live now: the fourth raid, The Fractured Archive, opened on Oct 20, 2026; Hardcore Worlds, 30 permanent worlds with their own economy, opened on Nov 4; and Quest Month is in its second week, with a Nov 11 update that also retuned six of the raid's encounters. The game is free to start, membership is $14.99 a month, and it runs on Windows, Mac, Steam, iOS and Android from one account. It is a point-and-click sandbox MMO with no classes, where every skill, quest and boss you finish stays finished.

Scores

Pros and cons

Pros

• Progress is permanent. New bosses and raids add items beside the old ones, so a year away costs you nothing.
• Ironman modes turn the same world into a single-player game with other people in it.
• Since Nov 4, 2026, Hardcore Worlds give non-Ironman players a one-life mode with its own Grand Exchange economy.
• One account plays on PC, Mac, Steam, iOS and Android, and you can hop between worlds in any region at will.
• No dailies, no login rewards and no cash shop items.
• Updates go to a player poll first, and the roadmap is dated through Autumn 2027.

Cons

• Combat is clicking a target and waiting.
• Membership costs as much as World of Warcraft's in the US since Mar 10, 2026, and the 12-month plan went from $79.99 to $131.88 in four years.
• Bonds let a normal account buy gold, and so gear, with money.
• Bots farm the same monsters and minigames you do. TheLazyPeon names it first among his cons.
• Some grinds have no bad-luck protection. TheLazyPeon tells of players going 7 to 10 times past the drop rate for one item.

PvP: 6/10

25:41 Old School RuneScape has more ways to fight players than most MMOs: the open Wilderness, PvP worlds, Bounty Hunter, Last Man Standing, the PvP Arena and Deadman mode. In his 2025 review TheLazyPeon lists two problems with it back to back: bots "ruin mini games like Last Man Standing", and the polling system "is unfair to PvP players" because the PvM majority votes proposals down.

The official record agrees with him. Jagex's roadmap of Oct 27, 2026 runs to Autumn 2027 and lists a city, a skill rework, quests and a diving expansion, and not one PvP release. The only PvP item in the RuneFest plan was a PvP Tutorial on Oct 7.

We rate it 6 and not lower because we think the design is still unmatched: real loot at stake, with a skill ceiling built on tick timing. A dated PvP release on the roadmap would make it a 7. Another year without one makes it a 5.

PvE: 9/10

15:26 The Fractured Archive is the fourth raid, for 2 to 8 players,. Jagex calls it "a tough encounter", and three weeks later it retuned six of the fights, most of them downward, while cutting the base unique drop rate from 1 in 14 to 1 in 16.

What lifts PvE to a 9 is range. TheLazyPeon, 2,500 hours in, struggled on wave three of the Doom of Mokhaiotl in his 2025 video and said that becoming a good PvM player here is "a tall mountain to climb"; by his account the best players reach wave 24. He also notes that PvM can be done solo, as a duo or in a group.

It is not a 10 because the newest raid shipped without its Practice Mode, which the Nov 11 post says is delayed by "critical bugs", and because it starts at two players, so the solo player is shut out of the newest content.

Solo play: 10/10

13:00 This is the best solo MMO we cover. Patyfatycake describes the loop in his 2026 video: level combat to unlock gear, use the gear to fight bigger monsters, get better gear, repeat, "until you get stuck at the corrupted gauntlet and end up quitting your Ironman".

Ironman mode removes trading, so every item is one you made or looted. Quests are written stories with puzzles, not kill lists, and November 2026 adds a new one each week. Nothing expires: Menaphos and Fairytale III will sit beside Barrows armor and the Abyssal whip, 2005 items that TheLazyPeon noted in December 2024 players still grind for.

Combat: 5/10

4:10 Josh Strife Hayes described it fairly in his 2021 review: "a tick-based click-and-wait system" that "on the surface actually looks quite boring", with depth that end-game players find by working the game's internal clock. Both halves are true.

Early on you click an enemy and watch. At the top, prayer and gear switches on exact ticks make the hardest fights, we think, as demanding as anything in the genre. But this score is for how fighting feels in the hands, and most players never reach the part that feels good. Nothing on the roadmap changes it, and we think players would vote a change down.

Fair pricing: 6/10

22:17 TheLazyPeon's summary still holds: "no dailies, no login rewards, no cash shop items, just sub fee plus bonds and that's it". Membership is $14.99 for one month or $10.99 a month on the 12-month plan ($131.88 a year) since Mar 10, 2026, and a Bond costs $9.99.

Two things keep this from a 10. First, Bonds: you buy one from Jagex and sell it to another player for gold, and gold buys gear on a normal account. That is power for money, softened because the gold is player-made. Second, the trend. PCGamesN's table shows the monthly price at $12.49 in May 2022, $13.99 in Sep 2024 and $14.99 now, a 20% rise, and the 12-month plan up 65% from $79.99. When Josh Strife Hayes called it "probably the best value membership for any MMO" in 2021, he quoted 11 dollars a month.

Population: 10/10

A 10 needs 100,000 online at once, and Old School RuneScape clears that on an ordinary Thursday: 132,640 on Jagex's live counter, read Nov 12, 2026. The highest 2026 figure we found in press is MeinMMO's "over 250,000" from Apr 29, 2026, two weeks after Leagues VI began on Apr 15.

Steam cannot see this game. Steam Charts' best 2026 month is a peak of 2,754 in August, about 2% of today's official count, because, we think, nearly everyone plays through the Jagex Launcher or on mobile. What the official number cannot see is bots: it counts accounts online, not people.

What creators say

13:04 TheLazyPeon puts it "straight in the S tier" in his MMORPG Tier List 2026, calls it his main MMO, and says it would be his first answer for which MMO is "still going to be here going strong 10 years from now". We agree on the long game. We rate it A because his own cons (bots, polls against PvP, Bonds) cost points under our rule.

6:31 RuneScape 4. At RuneFest 2026, Jagex announced a fourth RuneScape MMO; its Oct 5, 2026 release calls it "still early in development" in Unreal Engine, with no date. In TheLazyPeon's RuneFest recap of Oct 16, 2026, a video Jagex sponsored, Mod North of Jagex says the plan is to have RuneScape, Old School, Dragonwilds and RS4 "all sat together in a single stable" and that the new game "will not replace any of the games". We think Old School is the safest of the four: it has the players and a roadmap dated a year past the announcement.

Josh Strife Hayes (2021) called it one of the genre's "big five" and its PvP scene the most active relative to its player base. We agree with the first and think the second has aged: PvP is now the one part of the game without a plan.

Patyfatycake (2026, at 7:13) says the price rise is "a decent size increase" but not enough to make him or most people he knows stop playing. We think he is right about veterans, and that it matters more to a new player comparing subscriptions.

Who should play it, and who should not

Play it if you want one MMO for the next ten years, if you like setting your own goals, or if you want a second-screen game. Mobile players get the full game.

Skip it if combat feel comes first, or if you want a guided story from level 1 to the end. For the same world with ability-based combat, RuneScape is the nearest alternative. For tab-target raiding on a patch cycle, World of Warcraft is the obvious pick, and Guild Wars 2 is the other MMO TheLazyPeon credits with progress that does not expire.

Sources

• Old School RuneScape home page, live player count, Jagex, read Nov 12, 2026
• Old School Roadmap, Jagex, Oct 27, 2026
• RuneFest 2026 Summit Overview, Jagex, Oct 3, 2026
• The Fractured Archive - Out Today, Jagex, Oct 20, 2026
• Hardcore Worlds | OUT TODAY, Jagex, Nov 4, 2026
• Quest Month: Week Two & TFA Changes, Jagex, Nov 11, 2026
• Membership and Bonds Price Change, Jagex, Mar 10, 2026
• Download Old School RuneScape, Jagex, read Nov 12, 2026
• RuneFest 2026 press release, Jagex, Oct 5, 2026
• My Old School Runescape membership now costs more than World of Warcraft's, PCGamesN, Mar 10, 2026
• OSRS Leagues 6 patch notes, PCGamesN, Apr 15, 2026
• Ancient MMORPG currently has 250,000 players, MeinMMO, Apr 29, 2026
• Old School RuneScape on Steam Charts, read Nov 12, 2026
• Old School Runescape In 2025 "Is It Worth Playing?", TheLazyPeon, 2025
• MMORPG Tier List 2026, TheLazyPeon, Dec 11, 2025
• The Future Of Runescape Is INSANE | RuneFest 2026 Recap & VLOG, TheLazyPeon, Oct 16, 2026
• Why Is Old School Runescape So Popular?, TheLazyPeon, Dec 8, 2024
• Should you play Old School Runescape in 2021?, Josh Strife Hayes, 2021
• Why Do People Still Play Runescape in 2026, Patyfatycake, 2026