At Runefest 2026, Jagex unveils the Old-School Runescape roadmap, including hardcore worlds, a skilling dungeon, and its hardest raid ever.
Old School Runescape has a very busy year ahead. Jagex is making big moves across its entire landscape of MMORPGs, and as the current star in its lineup, OSRS is no exception. The developer just gave us an in-depth look at all the major additions arriving in the coming months, from its hardest raid ever in October's Fractured Archive to the launch of hardcore worlds, the long-awaited opening of the golden gates of Menaphos, and the completion of its most-requested storyline. Ahead of the show, I learned about all the highlights we can expect during a presentation from Creative Director Kieren Charles.
"We're trying to really deliver proper, meaningful, additive, permanent content to the game every single month without leaving a gap," Charles tells me. "There's a lot of stuff happening." The goal is "to deliver for players of all types," catering to OSRS newcomers and veterans alike, and including options for those who love questing and story, combat content, and skilling content alike. I've mentioned some of the biggest points already, but I'll work through the list in roughly chronological order to lay out exactly what's coming when.
You can see the full roadmap just below, but first on the list is the Fractured Archive, which releases on Tuesday October 20. This will bring the fourth endgame raid, which Charles calls "the hardest raid we've ever released," and you can expect new BIS rewards alongside that. He adds that Jagex is expecting "a big race to world first completion - we're not 100% sure how long it's going to take, we're quite excited to see players start to take it on."
OSRS Hardcore arrives on Wednesday November 4, and boasts three core tenets. It will take place on dedicated hardcore worlds, entirely separate from the regular bank. These are basically a fresh branch of Old School Runescape, boasting their own economy. Finally, of course, "it's hardcore, which means you only have one life, and if you die, that's it." He does note that fallen characters can be sent over to the core game if you want, so this is a more traditional experience than the existing Ironman game mode.
"We think the economy is going to be really interesting, because certain items are going to be very difficult to get, and you'll have to risk a lot to obtain them," Charles teases. "The core idea is that riches will favor the brave. You've got to go out and risk everything if you want to retain the ultimate achievements on these worlds." He also notes that coming so soon after the Fractured Archive begs the question of who will be first to clear OSRS's newest, most difficult raid on hardcore mode. "That's going to be a pretty crazy challenge."
November has also been dubbed 'Quest Month,' which Charles explains represents the release of "more quests in one month than we've ever done before," with multiple coming every single week. He remarks that these aren't trying to be the "epic, incredible cinematic finales" of some of the updates we'll be talking about shortly like Fairytale III, but should be "fun, additive quests and stories" that are sprinkled across the progression to "help really bring the game and the world to life."
Story content is certainly a big focus of the latest roadmap, as seen with The Chosen Commander, the grand conclusion to the Cave Goblin storyline, which will be arriving "early next year." It'll take us back to Dorgesh-Kaan to wrap up Zanik's tale - it's one that's already been told in the modern game, but we'll now see "the Old School version of that story." There will also be fresh skilling for Firemaking and Crafting via the Dorgeshuun Gasworks.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pcgamesn.com/old-school-runescape/osrs-roadmap-hardcore-menaphos-runefest-2026
