When Did RuneScape Come Out?
January 4, 2001. That’s the actual answer, and I want to give it to you cleanly before I do the thing I always do and complicate it — because RuneScape has had three distinct engine eras, not one continuous game wearing different skins, and knowing which one someone means actually matters.
The original build (now called RuneScape Classic) came from brothers Andrew and Paul Gower, working alongside Constant Tedder. By December 2003, they’d grown it to 65,000 paying members on a 29-person team, which is a wild ratio to sit with for a second. By May 2007, that had exploded to over 6 million free accounts and more than 1 million paying subscribers.
“RuneScape” today can mean three genuinely different games depending on who’s saying it. I’ve seen this cause more confused arguments in comment sections than almost any other MMO naming issue I’ve encountered, and it’s an easy mix-up to avoid once you know the actual timeline.
1. RuneScape Classic (2001) — the original. Retired for good on August 6, 2018.
2. RuneScape 2 (March 29, 2004) — a full engine rewrite, and the actual foundation both modern RuneScape and Old School RuneScape are built on.
3. RuneScape 3 (July 2013) — the current live version, built on the Evolution of Combat system from the year before.
4. Old School RuneScape (February 22, 2013) — its own separate game, not an expansion of anything. This one deserves its own section.
What Is Old School RuneScape?
Here’s the part of this story I love telling: Old School RuneScape exists because the players demanded it, and Jagex actually listened. It launched February 22, 2013, built from an August 2007 backup of the game — chosen specifically because a huge chunk of the community hated 2012’s Evolution of Combat overhaul and wanted the old system back, full stop.
Jagex didn’t just decide to make OSRS happen. They put it to a vote. The poll needed 500,000 votes to unlock every promised incentive and landed at 449,351 — short of the top tier, but Jagex delivered three of the five promises anyway: player-voted updates on all new content going forward, upgraded bot protection, and no extra fee to access the classic version. That’s a real, on-record commitment made to a community that had just spent a year furious at the company.
That polling system became OSRS’s whole identity. Almost every major update since 2013 goes through a community vote before it ships — which is an unusual amount of direct player control for a live service game this size. OSRS Mobile followed on October 30, 2018, and RuneScape itself landed on Steam on October 14, 2020.
How Much Does RuneScape Membership Cost?
As of March 10, 2026, it’s $14.99 a month, or $131.88 a year (working out to $10.99/month on the annual plan). This is the second price hike in under two years — the first took monthly from $12.49 to $13.99 back in September 2024, not long after Jagex was acquired by CVC Capital Partners.
Putting the fee to be similar to that of World of Warcraft.
RuneScape’s monthly price is now within a dollar of World of Warcraft’s, and RuneScape used to be the clear budget option by a wide margin. To be fair in the other direction, a WoW subscription covers unlimited characters on the account, while RuneScape membership is tied to a single account no matter what you’re paying.
Jagex framed the increase around long term sustainability, saying directly: “We want to keep RuneScape and Old School RuneScape sustainable for the next 25 years, not just the last 25,” pointing to recent investment in things like the Sailing skill, the Varlamore expansion, and improved anti-cheat systems as where the money’s actually going.
1. Grandfathered rates — if you’ve kept an active recurring monthly subscription since before September 27, 2024, you’re still on the old price. That protection disappears the moment you cancel or lapse on or after April 9, 2026.
2. 6-month membership — gone entirely as part of this change. Monthly and annual are your only two options now.
3. Bonds — the in-game workaround. Buy one with real money ($9.99) to gift membership or convert cash straight into gold, or buy one on the Grand Exchange with gold you’ve earned to fund your own membership for free. Do the per-day math, though — paying cash for a Bond specifically to cover your own membership actually costs more than just subscribing directly.
How Many People Play RuneScape?
Old School RuneScape hit an all time concurrent record of 240756 players on August 3, 2025, according to both Jagex and PCGamesN — and it’s a sustained climb from around 231719 in late 2024, not a one-day spike from some update.
The Bottom Line
Treat RuneScape and Old School RuneScape as separate games when you’re deciding between them. Different economies, different content, different communities — not two difficulty settings of one experience.
Lock in membership before the next hike if you’re planning to sub long-term. Grandfathered rates have real, documented value based on Jagex’s own recent pricing history.
Understand Bonds even if you never buy one with cash. Converting in-game gold into membership time is one of the most efficient uses of a strong gold-making session, especially for Ironmen who genuinely can’t trade for a Bond any other way.
Don’t repeat a player count you can’t source. If an article can’t tell you where its number actually comes from, it’s not worth passing along.
Related Guides
- OSRS Ironman Guide — for players deciding how to actually spend their time once they’re subscribed
- OSRS Money Making Guide — the fastest ways to fund your own membership through Bonds