Old School RuneScape explained before you start

In the first week of October, 76,408 Old School RuneScape players voted on twelve questions about the game's next year, and all twelve passed, the weakest with 85.5% of the vote. In August a new game mode won 63,687 votes to 35,267, a clear majority, and failed. The rule behind both results is the most unusual thing about the game: big changes need more than 70% of the voters. This page is for someone deciding whether to start. It covers what the game is, what free play gets, what membership costs on each store, how a poll is counted, what arrives this autumn, and which age labels it carries.

What it is

The Steam description puts it plainly: "This is the open world you know and love, but as it was in 2007." It adds that the game is "shaped by you, its players, with regular new content, fixes and expansions voted for by the fans". Jagex's support pages describe it as a "backup version of RuneScape from 2007" that "has evolved into something completely new", and the two games keep separate characters: "character information, stats, and items do not transfer between the two games."

It began with a vote. In February 2013 Jagex asked members whether they wanted the old servers back, and on 18 February it reported "over 160,000 votes and growing". On 22 February it opened the servers: "The August 10th 2007 version of RuneScape is now live and open to all who vote." The same post set out what each level of support would pay for: 50,000 votes to bring the service back, 250,000 for a small team and "a small additional membership fee of $5", 500,000 for no extra fee and "regular membership polls to decide new content", and 750,000 for a version "open to free players, too". None of the posts we read gives the vote's final total.

The rest of the history is a run of dated Jagex posts:

Jagex Ltd is the developer and the publisher on Steam. Its press release for RuneFest 2026 places the company in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and says the RuneScape franchise as a whole "has welcomed over 300 million player accounts"; that figure covers every RuneScape game, not Old School alone. datasets/games.csv records the game with Jagex Ltd as developer and publisher, a first release of 2013-02-22, the platforms Windows PC, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, the genre MMORPG and the era current: the thirty-fourth row.

How a poll is counted

The polling charter sets the rules. To vote, "you'll need to be a member in Old School RuneScape with a total skill level of at least 300 and a minimum total play-time of 25 hours." A feature poll passes "if it has achieved over 70% yes votes when it closes." Polls cover new content, reworks and changes "that will significantly impact the existing meta, such as changes to XP rates." They do not cover Leagues, Deadman Mode, holiday events, bug fixes, small quality-of-life changes, the look of items, the tutorials for new players, or prices: "Pricing changes to both Membership and Bonds" are excluded because "We need the ability to change prices as required." Ironman-style modes are a stated exception to the game-mode rule; Jagex classifies them as new content, so they go to a vote.

The Bronzeman poll shows how the line works. Bronzeman Mode would have given Ironman restrictions while letting players use the Grand Exchange for any item they had already obtained once. The page reports 104,055 votes in all.

The page prints Yes as 64.4%. That is 63,687 divided by 98,954, the Yes and No votes only, which is 64.36%. Counting the skipped ballots would have given 61.2%, which is not what the page shows, so skipping a question does not count against it. To clear the line, Yes needed more than 70% of 98,954, which is 69,267.8, so at least 69,268 votes: 5,581 of the No voters would have had to vote Yes instead. Every other question on that ballot passed, including the two quests, A Ruff Situation at 89.5% and Crab Quest at 88.7%, and both quests were released on 8 September.

Jagex's post the same day said that "even with a majority of players voting Yes, the poll still fell short of the required 70% supermajority". It also said something players rarely see written down: "It should be no secret that we're able to see poll results before they become public." It ran an in-game survey on the mode, and the poll list shows a Bronzeman Opinion Survey from 21 to 28 August. The post also promised an optional question in future polls asking why a player voted as they did.

The October poll went the other way.

On every question the Yes, No and Skipped counts add up to the 76,408 total. Hardcore Worlds, listed first in the summit overview, was not one of the twelve questions. The poll list for 2026 holds 22 polls and surveys between 12 January and 9 October, and every month from January to October had at least one of them open.

What free play gets, and what membership adds

Free play has been permanent since 19 February 2015, when Jagex wrote that "Anyone and everyone can log on and play the F2P area of the game until their heart's content." The charter's first line means that a free account cannot vote. Jagex's membership page lists what members get, and the Steam listing for the membership carries an older version of the same list:

The Steam text predates Sailing, which is why its skill count is one short; it also counts additional quests where Jagex's page counts quests in all. Where the two disagree, Jagex's own page is the current one.

What it costs, and where

The game itself is free on every store. Membership prices as read on 11 October 2026:

The yearly plan on Steam works out at $131.88 divided by 12, which is $10.99 a month. Twelve single months would cost 12 times $14.99, or $179.88, so the yearly plan saves $48.00, or 26.7%. The same sums give £7.99 a month and a saving of £36.00 in the UK, and 9,99€ a month and a saving of 42,00€ in Germany. The App Store does not say why two prices appear for the same item. Jagex's Sailing page says its subscription "will renew automatically at standard 1-month membership rate until cancelled."

Bonds are the other route. Jagex Support says an Old School Bond can be redeemed for "Membership (across both game versions)" or a character name change, and in the game the Store Orb is "A quick way to access the store to purchase Membership or Bonds."

Where it runs

Jagex's download page offers the Jagex Launcher for Windows, macOS and Linux (the Linux file is labelled beta), plus Steam, the App Store and Google Play. Progress carries across: the mobile page says you can "continue on mobile right where you left off on PC."

• Windows. Steam asks for a 64-bit Windows 10 or later and recommends an Intel i3-6100 or any AMD Ryzen processor, 8 GB of memory, a GeForce GTX 600 series, Intel UHD Graphics 610 or AMD Radeon R7 260, and 2 GB of storage.
• macOS. Steam lists macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later. Jagex's 14 September post says the launcher's minimum is moving up to macOS 12 (Monterey). The current launcher is an Intel application that relies on Rosetta, which "is not installed by default on macOS 27", so on that system the first launch brings a one-time prompt to install it. An Apple Silicon version had "a provisional release window within the next two months" of that post.
• iPhone and iPad. The App Store lists iOS 13.0 or later and a size of 40.9 MB.
• Android. Google Play, with more than 5 million downloads.

Jagex's new player guide names three ways to play on a computer: its own client, "the only one that is on both Desktop and Mobile", and two third-party clients it supports, RuneLite ("The client most used by players") and HDOS.

Before you start

Pick your account type on Tutorial Island. Jagex's guide is emphatic: "you can ONLY choose your Ironman Status on Tutorial Island." Paul, the Ironman Tutor, offers the modes: Ironman (no trading, no Grand Exchange), Hardcore Ironman (one life, after which "you will just lose your status and continue as a regular Ironman"), Ultimate Ironman (no bank, "NOT RECOMMENDED FOR NEW PLAYERS"), and Group Ironman for teams of two to five.

Hardcore Worlds is a separate choice from 4 November. The summit overview describes new characters on separate worlds with "Separate worlds, separate economy, one life." On death you either start again or move the character to the main game, keeping its progress except the items lost. There are no XP or drop-rate boosts. Jagex says a dedicated blog with the full rules is coming.

The new raid is not a first-week goal. The Fractured Archive opens on 20 October. It needs the quest While Guthix Sleeps, "scales between 2 to 8 players", and Jagex recommends 3 to 5; it calls solo clears "very challenging". A team wipe sends everyone back to the lobby, and the Practice Mode "will not be available on release".

Use the wiki button. The guide points new players to the community wiki and to the minimap button that opens it in game.

Age labels

The labels disagree by up to five years. The one Jagex chose to show on its own pages is PEGI 16. Steam marks its three labels as generated by the store. We did not consult the rating boards' own databases for this article.

How many play

At 14:18 UTC on Sunday 11 October, the game's home page said: "There are currently 110,335 people playing". The line does not split that number by platform, and we did not read a Steam player count, because the Steam host that serves it closes itself to automated readers in its robots.txt.

The store ratings, read the same afternoon:

• Steam: 20,917 reviews, 17,326 of them positive, which is 82.8% and the store's "Very Positive" band.
• App Store (US): 4.8 out of 5 from 93K ratings.
• Google Play (US): 4.1 stars from 138K reviews.

Turnout is the other measure. The 104,055 votes in the August poll came from members who meet the charter's level and play-time bar, a group the 110,335 online count can only hint at, since one is a week of ballots and the other a single moment.

You can re-count any poll with the script that ships with this article. It reads Jagex's results page, recomputes each Yes share from the counts, marks it against the 70% line, and for a failed question prints how many No votes would have had to switch:

python osrs-poll-check.py
python osrs-poll-check.py 2026/1764

What is not known

• Jagex's own membership prices. Its membership page loads them by script, and we did not read them.
• The final 2013 vote total. The posts we read stop at "over 160,000" and the levels.
• Hardcore Worlds in detail. Jagex has promised a dedicated blog.
• Dates beyond this year. The press release puts Menaphos in 2027, and lists the Fairytale questline, Quest Month, Dungeons of Gielinor, the Mining and Smithing rework and The Chosen Commander for 2027 without dates. The May roadmap's regional servers for South Africa, Japan and Singapore are marked "2026 TBC".
• What happens to Bronzeman. Jagex said it would return with an update once it knew "what, if anything, should happen next". No later post in Jagex's news archive through 7 October has Bronzeman in its title.

Should you start now

Start free, on whatever device you already have: the free game costs nothing to try, and progress follows you between PC and phone. Decide about Ironman before you leave Tutorial Island, since that choice cannot be made later. If you want a say in what gets built, a month of membership is $14.99 on Steam, and the charter will still ask for 300 total levels and 25 hours played before your first vote counts.