Thoughts on RuneScape: Dragonwilds
So Jagex recently released a new game called RuneScape: Dragonwilds. As a RuneScape player, this naturally got my attention. Now, it should be said that I only watched videos about the game, so this will be more of a vibe review than anything else.
This game is weird. It feels like a random survival game that has RuneScape-themed mods in it. This game does not register as part of the RuneScape IP in my mind. I suppose this is not impossible that this was originally a non-RuneScape project whose direction got changed fairly late into development.
I think what I hate the most about this game is how everything feels forced. What I mean by that is that everything in that game scream “Look, it's a RuneScape thing you know!”. Everything I have seen so far suggest that the game literally has zero originally content. It's all derived of existing things.
This honestly made me question if the RuneScape even have a reutilisable intellectual property. While studying signatures, I speculated that the appeal of RuneScape was how it feels like “a generic medieval fantasy RPG”. I wonder if that's why the game feels so weird? Perhaps the “RuneScape magic” is the result of this of the sum of all its parts rather than the individual ideas contained within the game?
While writing this, I thought of Mario Golf. Should characters from this IP be removed from that game, you would just end up with golf. Jagex did a similar thing here. I think the crux of the issue is that Dragonwilds present itself as being part of the RuneScape world even though it's clearly not. This is just a random landmass with a few RuneScape things sprinkled in without care. Why is the Wise Old Man, Doric, Vannaka and Zanik there? The reason is obvious. Fan service. I could understand 1 of them being here, but all of them at once just feel incredibly forced and on-the-nose. The game also features a green dragon found in the game is called “Velgar” - an anagram of “Elvrag”. This game tries so hard to be like RuneScape that it actively put me off.
Now, this is not the first time that Jagex has released a RuneScape spin-off. Back in the day, I tried one of the beta for RuneScape: Chronicles. Although I ultimately did not like the game, that game felt like a proper RuneScape game. I think the reason I was ok with it was the framing. The game was explicitly “gamey” in its presentation (similar to Mario Golf). I think Dragonwilds could work if they dialed back the fan service a bit and put more care into the world.
From a purely business perspective, Jagex certainly made the right call by setting this game in the RuneScape universe. They clearly know that brand recognition is a powerful tool. I probably would be writing this if it was just survival game #6546545. Still, I'd wish that the game would take be more creative or at least have some stuff that aren't carbon copies of things found in OSRS.
On a final note, I hate how this game has pseudo-realistic graphics. Putting the fact that I dislike this artistic direction, I feel like Jagex has forgotten what made RuneScape popular in the first place: accessibility. Unlike RuneScape, this game is not very accessible as it requires a high-end gaming PC. I think they should made the game in a low poly artstyle that would have been a mix of Old School RuneScape and Valheim's. While I was very harsh about the game in this article, the gameplay does seem interesting. The game is however not interesting enough for me to purchase an expensive computer just to try it out.
Written by manpaint on 19 April 2025.