Jagex introduced that its open world survival sport RuneScape: Dragonwilds is now obtainable in early entry on Steam.
Jon Bellamy, who took over as CEO of Runescape writer Jagex on March 4, stated in an interview with GamesBeat that the sport is an enormous guess on a brand new kind of gameplay for RuneScape followers.
The title is about on the forgotten continent of Ashenfall within the RuneScape universe that’s infested with dragons. Within the sport, gamers collect, craft, and wield highly effective magic in a co-op survival journey powered by Unreal Engine 5.
Cambridge, United Kingdom-based Jagex is doing a deep dive immediately and speaking concerning the new journey with followers. Solely by mastering survival and uncovering historical secrets and techniques are you able to hope to slay the Dragon Queen—alone or with allies.
It’s an enormous guess for RuneScape, a web based sport world which has generated $3 billion to this point and has had 300 million registered customers over the many years. The sport nonetheless has 1.3 million lively subscribers, Bellamy stated. In December 2024, the 24-year-old sport had the best membership ranges it ever had. Bellamy sees it as a sport for making reminiscences and stirring nostalgia.
As we speak the RuneScape massively multiplayer on-line role-playing sport (MMORPG) franchise consists of each RuneScape and Previous College RuneScape, on PC and cellular, provide ever-evolving, extremely lively worlds and community-focused improvement.
The brand new RuneScape: Dragonwilds journey blends magic, excessive fantasy with mild RPG components and iconic RuneScape lore. Gamers can do a solo journey or group up with as much as three associates throughout Ashenfall, which has by no means been explored earlier than. Bellamy stated the corporate constructed the sport on group suggestions, with a number of closed alpha exams to evaluate fan response to the design.
Bellamy himself has performed greater than 100 hours of the sport, which has co-op modes and is replayable.
“It’s going to be very acquainted to gamers,” Bellamy stated. “It’s a brand new tackle one thing acquainted.”
A longtime fan and a company merry-go-round
Paul and Andrew Gower started constructing in a kitchen in Nottinghamshire in 1998. They launched it in 2001 and it was successful. In 2013, Jagex launched Previous College RuneScape to revert again to a 2007 model of the sport. It did so as a result of gamers signed a petition saying they needed the previous sport again.
Jagex bounced round a bit these days. In 2016 Jagex was bought by Hongtou, a Chinese language funding firm, which was subsequently acquired by Zhongji Holdings, which later modified its identify to Fukong Interactive Leisure. Jagex was bought for $530 million to Macarthur Fortune Holding in April 2020.
Within the midst of the pandemic in 2021, the corporate was acquired by Carlyle in 2021. In 2022, Jagex expanded with the acquisition of Gamepires, which made SCUM, a multi-million promoting open-world survival title.
Then CVC Capital Companions and Haveli Investments acquired Jagex in February 2024. Again in March, Bellamy was appointed CEO of Jagex to succeed Phil Mansell, who served as CEO since 2017.
“That is the dream job for me,” Bellamy stated. “I’ve been taking part in RuneScape for 20 years. I labored briefly at Jagex for 3 or 4 years a few decade in the past, after which was requested by CVC, (the present house owners alongside Haveli), to assist consider Jagex as a enterprise.”
Bellamy has had loads of coaching as he has been a RuneScape participant for greater than 20 years. He served on Jagex’s board since 2024 and he held govt roles at Jagex from 2015 to 2018. He was additionally an exec at social on line casino sport firm Huuuge Video games from 2019 to 2023.
Mansell, who labored as CEO for eight of his 14 years at Jagex, will advise Bellamy for a time and stated in an announcement that Bellamy cares concerning the firm’s video games and enterprise. Bellamy appears himself as a steward for the sport franchise which means a lot to hundreds of thousands.
Bellamy did so and CVC and Haveli acquired Jagex later. He served on the board and was faraway from that position when Mansell determined to step down. The house owners did an analysis after which appointed Bellamy as CEO again in March. Operating the corporate is just not practically the identical as being a fan or developer.
“I’ve to remind myself on daily basis that I’m not a sport designer,” Bellamy stated.
He’s completely satisfied to preside over the launch of RuneScape’s first sport in additional than 10 years, and it has been within the works for greater than three years with a group that has ranged from 30 to 50 individuals.
Investing in RuneScape: Dragonwilds
The sport is maybe Jagex’s largest new product funding to this point, but it’s a small a part of the five hundred workers, which is closely tasked with sustaining RuneScape and Previous College RuneScape. When a sport firm is profitable with titles like these ones, it’s not straightforward to launch a model new sport.
“For a few years, we’ve been experimenting as an organization, even over the last time I labored right here 10 years in the past, with what a RuneScape sport would appear to be as an isometric sport performed over the shoulder, with Unreal graphics — what would the world appear to be?”
Bellamy credited Jesse America, govt producer, for taking an enormous swing and developing with an strategy of recent graphics in a much-loved universe that has been positively obtained by followers to this point.
“They’ve mainly been asking for a sport like this for 20 years now, and after we introduced that Dragonwilds was now obtainable to want record simply two weeks in the past, individuals stated it’s lastly occurring,” Bellamy stated.
Previously two weeks, RuneScape: Dragonwilds has been wishlisted greater than 350,000 instances.
Requested why individuals nonetheless play the sport, Bellamy stated, “I get requested this loads. It’s really distinctive. It’s not an MMORPG in the best way that many others are. For instance, a quest in RuneScape is radically totally different, to say, a quest in World of Warcraft, the place you may be requested to go and fetch a sure variety of sources and produce them again to an individual.”
He added, “A quest in RuneScape will be many hours of high-fantasy storytelling with tongue in cheek British humor. And I feel that creates an alchemy allure that doesn’t actually exist in lots of different video games. And that’s why I feel it over indexes within the U.S. and within the U.Ok. so properly. Finally, it’s the type of place that doesn’t depend on growth packs to stay evergreen. It’s the type of universe the place you possibly can fairly fortunately spend years on finish, and most gamers do.”
In actual fact, the common participant lifetime is now greater than 5 years, and you’ll spend a few years of escapist enjoyable within the universe with out counting on growth pack fashion releases, he stated.
Whereas Jagex bounced from proprietor to proprietor, Bellamy stated the workers has been steady and has been for quite a lot of years. A lot of the group is sport builders, and plenty of of them have hundreds of hours of play expertise in RuneScape.
“We see lots of people who’ve grown up taking part in the sport they usually acknowledge simply how magical it’s,” he stated. “They dreamed of engaged on RuneScape as possibly a baby or as a teen rising up. Possibly they went and spent just a few years at Deloitte or one thing to be an grownup, after which understand, truly they nonetheless simply need to come and work on RuneScape.”
Previously, the technique was to broaden the corporate past its RuneScape roots. However Bellamy’s objective is to obsess over the core sport and enhance the participant expertise. He pays consideration to lively gamers in addition to those that observe from the sidelines however nonetheless think about themselves a part of the group.
The business’s woes
As for the business’s layoffs, he stated, “It’s been an extremely robust couple of years for the business. There’s nonetheless a really giant variety of professionals who’re out of labor or in search of roles. And each time I open LinkedIn, I can see that firsthand. It’s not misplaced on me. The sustainability of the business in the long run required a few of that shake up.”
He added, “I feel we did collectively over-hire with irresponsible practices through the COVID years specifically, and so we noticed a response to that. All of that’s shaking out of the system as we got here again to normality. I feel that’s an actual disgrace that it occurred in the best way that it did, and that it coincided with a few of the extra structural modifications, significantly inside cellular gaming, with the introduction of ATT (Apple’s push for privateness over focused advertisements). It appears like we’re at a confluence level now the place the price of improvement has by no means been increased.”
Add to that financial instability, and that makes it laborious to spend money on any new venture.
He stated, “It’s by no means been more durable to construct and launch giant scale, formidable new video games for these of us who’re nonetheless attempting to do it. We’re placing our greatest foot ahead, however we additionally acknowledge that it’s a lot more durable than it was just a few years in the past.”
And he stated, “So whereas it’s straightforward to grasp what has occurred and why it has occurred, we will actually say in good religion that we’re we’re doing our greatest to push the business ahead and make the video games that we predict the business deserves and the gamers need.”
Wanting round the remainder of the sport business, which is beset with layoffs and unsuccessful reside service video games, Bellamy thinks they’ve unsustainable practices, are unfinished, and have monetization fashions which can be aggressive and don’t characterize honest worth anymore.
“I feel the final gameplay expertise for a reside service sport is worse than it was 10 years in the past,” he stated. “I feel RuneScape and Previous College RuneScape are an oasis within the desert. You pay a subscription charge and get entry to the entire sport for so long as you need.”
“I’m certain you’re seeing who’s completely satisfied and who isn’t completely satisfied within the video games ecosystem with the newest delayed releases. From my perspective, it looks like individuals are broadly sad. So if we will provoke a few of that change and carry the torch, that’s a legacy we’re leaving,” he stated.
Whereas some might view players immediately as entitled, Bellamy doesn’t see it that method. He simply attended RuneFest, which drew hundreds of gamers to the U.Ok. It had a web promoter rating of 89%.
“We are able to’t simply say players are too entitled. That’s 1 / 4 of the planet,” he stated.
So he doesn’t need to broaden past RuneScape.
“I don’t see it that method,” Bellamy stated. “I truly suppose that being the RuneScape firm is the easiest factor that we will be. I feel for video games like ours which have generated a number of billions of {dollars} of income from tons of of hundreds of thousands of gamers, there’s no disgrace in being profitable.”
