Very similar to our Stardew Valley review, reviewing Old School RuneScape (Free) feels like more of a formality than anything else as Jagex has spent the last 17 or so years refining the game into what many fans of super hardcore “classic" MMORPGs like this would define as the perfect example of the genre. Old School RuneScape, or OSRS for short, is one hell of a rabbit hole to fall into. You can get a small glimpse of that in our RuneFest 2018 coverage, but the long and short of it is this: RuneScape is a one billion dollar game that has a global fanbase, holds several world records, and has so much content that you could play the game for quite literally years.
RuneScape was originally released all the way back in 2001, when the gaming world was still figuring out what an MMORPG actually was. At the time the main competition of RuneScape would’ve been Ultima Online and EverQuest, but RuneScape had a major edge in that it was a browser game- Meaning kids could totally play it on their school’s computers. (Which is where a lot of the nostalgia for Old School RuneScape comes from.) Over the years, like any game that is operated as a service, RuneScape has massively evolved. Again, like any game that is operated as a service, these evolutionary steps were not always seen as positive things by players. This dissent served as a vital ingredient in the primordial soup that would become Old School RuneScape.
OSRS launched back in early 2013, and effe...