I’ve been a fool. For the past couple of decades, I’ve put off trying out the massively popular online role-playing game (RPG) RuneScape. Even as a kid back in the early 2000s, I was always under the impression that its limited visuals and obtuse game systems would have me bouncing off in minutes, despite most of my friends being hooked on it.
Those same friends from my school days are still playing the game to this day, via developer Jagex’s Old School RuneScape (OSRS) release that preserves the game as it was back then, still with a steady stream of substantial content updates. Now, after a recent Dungeons & Dragons session where the conversation landed on the game, I finally caved and downloaded Old School RuneScape on my PC. And I couldn’t have been more wrong about it.
Despite its dated appearance and myriad systems and quests, Old School RuneScape is a deceptively simple game that has aged like the finest of wines. It’s incredibly easy to get into in 2025, and an abundance of community-driven resources make jumping in to do quests or level some skills a (mostly) straightforward and intoxicating endeavor. I genuinely wish I’d jumped on the bandwagon as a teenager, because Old School RuneScape is still one of the most rewarding and refreshing gaming experiences you can have today.
It takes a Lumbridge
RuneScape takes place in the vast, vast land of Gielinor – a place that simultaneously feels like the largest and densest I’ve ever seen in a video game. With countless towns, cities, landmarks, land masses, and oddities off the beaten track, there’s an astonishing level of detail that you just won’t find even in the biggest AAA games of today.
The iconic starting town of Lumbridge is a perfect microcosm of Old School RuneScape as a whole. It’s loaded with shops and places to hone your various skills (of which there are a lot), and its relatively central nature means you can branch off in basically any direction to start an adventure.
And there are plenty of adventures (not to mention dangers) to experience across Gielinor. As a brand new player, the in-game activity adviser does a fantastic job of highlighting recommended quests. Quests are a huge part of Old School RuneScape, and most feel like they unlock something substantial upon completion. That could be powerful weapons or armor, massive boosts to skill experience, or even entirely new areas and fast travel options.
Yes, this is not a game where you can just fast-travel on a dime. At least not initially. In most cases, the ability to teleport to specific locations is something you have to earn. That could be in the form of specific teleportation spells, or networks of gliders, ships, minecarts, and the like. Much of your travel in OSRS will be on foot, and that can be a thrilling and dangerous experience.
What I found most terrifying is that dying in Old School RuneScape can have very real and disastrous consequences. If you bite off a bit more than you can chew, you will lose nearly everything except the clothes on your back, and you’ll have 15 minutes to travel back to where you died to loot your inventory from a grave stone. Those corpse runs you do in all the best soulslike games? Yeah, they’re nothing compared to this.
15 minutes sounds generous, but if you die far from Lumbridge (where you’ll respawn) without any fast travel options unlocked, you’ll start wishing you had at least double that. As a result, I found myself making liberal use of the bank to store everything that wasn’t absolutely required for my current quest or skilling session.
I am Iron Man
I’m playing Old School RuneScape as an ‘Ironman’ character, as recommended by a friend. There is one key restriction that Ironmen have to deal with, and that’s the inability to make use of the Grand Exchange (or ‘GE’), a player-driven market hub where you can buy anything from resources to weapons and other useful items with in-game gold.
Without access to the Grand Exchange, you have to source absolutely everything yourself. Need 20 balls of wool for a quest? You need to find a pair of shears, go to town on some sheep, then spin the wool yourself. Collecting four distinct colored balls from imps? Farm them and hope they drop within a reasonable amount of time.
It sounds like a pain, and it certainly can be if your mindset is just wanting to get quests done ASAP for the rewards. But there is a distinct sense of achievement in completing quests, knowing you did all the legwork on your own. It’s an experience that both teaches and demands patience. Of course, community-driven resources like the OSRS Wiki certainly help (as well as the RuneLite client’s incredible Quest Helper plugin), but this only serves to point you in the right direction. You still have to put in the manual labor without relying on the GE as a crutch.
Overall, Ironman Old School RuneScape is one of the most fun and thrilling gaming experiences I’ve had in years. In an age where many AAA games can often feel interchangeable – with abundant fast travel, groan-worthy percentage-based skill upgrades, and ‘convenient’ microtransactions – OSRS has been extremely refreshing.
With a colossal world to explore, upgrades and skills earned through effort, and no shortage of low-poly charm, it’s a game I can see myself struggling to put down for years to come. I just wish I’d set off on this journey sooner.
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