Players can expect something new yet familiar in Jagex’s upcoming title.
Naysayers may say that RuneScape is way past its prime compared to other MMOs but it’s here to stay. UK developer Jagex announced that it would continue expanding the RuneScape universe and RS3 gold by making a new open-world game for PC and console. This was known on June 21 when Jagex announced three new hires working on an upcoming game from the studio – two developers from Ubisoft and another who’s worked on past Sony titles. For now, the unnamed game remains a mystery, and there are no actual details, but we know it’ll be built using the Unreal 5 Engine.
Why Jagex is Thinking of Branching Out
With this mystery game, Jagex aims to grow the RuneScape franchise further by branching out to new audiences on console and desktop platforms. This suggests that besides this upcoming open-world game launching on PC, we can expect the studio’s next project andRunescape gold to appear on PlayStation, Xbox, or even Nintendo Switch platforms. The notion seems even more likely considering that the two new hires from Ubisoft tie into these console market hopes.
The CEO of Jagex, Phil Mansell, commented that their project is “soon-to-be-revealed” and explained why they decided to broaden their horizons. Since Old School RuneScape, RuneScape, and the buzz of activity of their third-party publishing arm, Jagex Partners, is doing well, they figured now’s the right time. Jagex plans to scale up its new game development teams to bring a unique visual experience and gameplay to the RuneScape universe.
New Hires
As we’ve stated, Jagex recently hired three new developers to work on their untitled game. Of the three announced, two– Maddie Harper and Géry Arduino – previously worked on Ubisoft. Arduino, who has previously worked on Ghost Recon and Assassin’s Creed, will work as a principal technical artist. While Harper, who’s worked on titles such as Rainbow Six Extraction and Watch Dog Legion, will be a senior producer. The third hire – GuilhemBarloy – who has been involved in Sony titles including Little Planet Karting and DriveClub, will work as the associate technical director.
Why Make A New Game?
Jagex is already immensely successful with OSRS and RuneScape, so why make a new game and potentially lose profits? The company has been trying to diversify its portfolio for years now. They’re pumping out as many spinoff titles as possible (remember DarkScape?) in the hopes that one will stick and invest in that. While that side game will make them lots of moolah, they can slowly retire RuneScape 3 in favor of a new RS title like RS4 built from the ground up.
The only kicker here is that nothing has stuck – except for RuneScape.
Jagex’s Past Reputation for Releasing New Games
Jagex doesn’t exactly have a clean track record when it comes to releasing new games; you could say they’re the type to give up quickly. A prime example of this behavior was when they released Chronicle: RuneScape Legends in May 2016. Chronicle: RuneScape Legends was a pretty solid card game, for the most part. It had unique mechanics and so much potential if they were willing to invest time into it. Alas, 2015-2016 was when Hearthstone’s online culture was at its peak. Everyone and their mother came out with a new card game, and the worst part is that they were instantly labeled as “Hearthstone clones,” even if they were vastly different.
Besides the time were online TCGs were popping out left and right, Jagex’s minimal support didn’t help either. The development team for Chronicle: RuneScape Legends was ten people; that’s hardly an entire team dedicated to supporting the game. Nonetheless, they managed to squeeze out a couple of expansions before Jagex decided to pull the plug on it in May 2018 due to a staggering player base and multiple technical issues.
We can see here that Jagex isn’t the type to take a risk, and they have this stance where if a game doesn’t blow up in popularity right away, then it’s not worth keeping in the long run. This can be seen during the development of Transformers Universe. The CEO at that time, Mark Gerhard, stated that if the game “doesn’t get any many downloads as Angry Birds, there’s no point.” In the end, it didn’t get a lot of traction, and Jagex canceled all mobile development for Transformers Universe.
Hopefully, things have changed since those times, and they plan to tackle this new game with a long-term investment. Abandoning a game when it’s no longer doable is fine, but trying to meet ridiculous expectations (such as aiming to have tons of players that’ll buy Runescape gold immediately) will ultimately be their downfall.
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