Why are more gamers than ever playing the 2000s classic RuneScape?
Why are more gamers than ever playing the 2000s classic RuneScape?
Why are more gamers than ever playing the 2000s classic RuneScape?
Millions of people have returned to the iconic online game to farm, go on quests and fight big bosses.
A lot of people around my age might read those words and be instantly thrown back to the days of dial-up internet, MSN Messenger and Napster.
But before you instinctively type the letters "a/s/l" on your keyboard, get this - for a lot of people, this is hardly the stuff of distant memories.
In 2025 RuneScape - the online game where players can go on quests with their friends which first launched way back in 2001 - saw an influx of players.
Its number of paid members grew to "well over a million" according to the company, an increase of 30% compared to the start of the year.
Many millions more play for free, and the firm saw a historic milestone in 2025 - with a whopping 240,000 logging in at the same time, the most simultaneous players in the game's 25-year history.
To put that into context, at the time of writing, only three games available on the online store Steam have more current players.