MMORPGs are designed to last for years, supporting huge playerbases across interconnected worlds as they explore, grind for loot, and complete ever-evolving story quests. For a game like RuneScape, which has existed in different forms since 2001, those quests have to grow larger in scope to help keep its audience invested. This morning, developer Jagex premieres the trailer for RuneScape's Desperate Measures update, in which players have to stop the destruction of all beings in the universe.
Desperate Measures marks the latest installment of the Elder Gods questline that has been ongoing since 2014, after Jagex overhauled the game into its HTML-based iteration RuneScape 3. In a 2016 quest called Sliske's Endgame, players met the Elder God Jas who threatened to destroy all mortal life if they could not prove its worth. That was followed by the Desperate Times questline, in which a council of leaders from the world of Gielnor devise a plan to stop the threat before getting betrayed. Game Rant talked with Jagex Lead Designer David Osborne, Senior Games Designer Tim Fletcher, and Lead Content Developer James Crowther about how the RuneScape Desperate Measures update will continue this story utilizing the game's new Archaeology skill.
According to Crowther, who has helped guide the Elder Gods' questline since its inception, the driving character behind the Desperate duology is Kerapac, a member of a scientifically-advanced race called the dragonkin that has existed since the age before the current in-game universe. In Desperate Times, Kerapac suggests the council use a time-controlling ancient artefact called the Needle to put the Elder Gods to sleep, and then steals it out from under their noses with the intent of killing these deities. To stop his plan, players now have to explore dragonkin history in the "Land Out of Time" Anachronia, which introduced dinosaurs to RuneScape in 2019.
The narrative scope of Desperate Measures will be "enormous" Crowther said, but some of the underlying implications will not be obvious. Using Archaeology, RuneScape's first new skill in over four years that was first announced at RuneFest 2019, players have to uncover the forgotten history of the dragonkin that will help inform future content and be a treat for "lorehounds." To take on Desperate Measures, players need to have reached level 50 in Archaeology and Agility, and should be level 75 in Combat according to a developer update stream on July 7.
"All our quests involve bespoke gameplay and often come with their own design challenges," Crowther said. "At least one section of the quest involves strategic gameplay that doesn't really exist anywhere in the game."
Fletcher said there will be huge new reveals in Desperate Measures, ones that begin threads with long-reaching impacts. The "high level" overarching story synopsis and plan for the Elder Gods questline has existed for some time, but each step in fleshing out the complete experience is more complex. Ideas for Desperate Measures were being discussed throughout development on Desperate Times, and initial pitches have to be greenlit by stakeholders before development can begin according to Crowther. The schedule on new content is fluid due to there being multiple ongoing projects. For instance, RuneScape's Archaeology update led to Desperate Measures being "shuffled around" so Jagex could tweak its design.
Archaeology fits into this new questline, which involves uncovering the past, but Fletcher said the idea of utilizing archaeology also retroactively fits into RuneScape's content as a whole. "The skill actually gives us a set of consistent mechanics to create new content along the same theme, which is great," he said. When Desperate Measures was discussed on July 7, a piece of concept art with "prop designs" was released showcasing a number of weapons, potions, chests, and a tank full of orange liquid players might expect to see in other MMORPGs like Star Wars: The Old Republic. Crowther said they could not give away any specific details at this stage, but that players will learn what these "scientifically advanced" props are used for throughout the story.
Despite the expanding scope of RuneScape's universe, Osborne said the content being implemented now, as well as content planned to be announced in the future, fits well into the game's overall philosophy of being an experience that players can check into whenever they want. The developers see RuneScape as a game that is about making progress in small sessions, usually by improving upon one individual skill to power up a player's avatar. This extends to RuneScape Mobile as well as Old School RuneScape, the pre-RuneScape 3 build that is still being supported with a recent mobile port of its own.
"There is nearly 20 years' worth of content in the game," Osborne said. "Yet it's not a huge, lavish and unwieldy game that makes it difficult to bring to other platforms."
These mobile releases have contributed to "multiple, successive years of growth" for the brand according to Osborne, with the base game accelerating in membership and concurrent playercounts — particularly following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which coincided the release of the Archaeology skill in March. While many developers say their games have been delayed by COVID-19, Crowther said the RuneScape team has been adaptable in the face of this challenge. In fact, Osborne said there is a plan in place to release content every month while the world is housebound, that way players can "frequently" have new objectives and rewards to obtain rather than having to wait for huge content dumps every few months.
Though the team recognizes this is a "uniquely tricky situation," developing Desperate Measures has proven they can work in the face of adversity. In terms of upcoming content, "We're not looking for quests to solely push the story forward: We want absolutely everything, even our events, to feel like it's building up story momentum," according to Osborne. With additions like an Elder God Wars Dungeon on the way after Desperate Measures, the Jagex team is "stoked" to continue expanding a universe that has spawned multiple games and RuneScape novels.
RuneScape is available now on PC and Mobile. The Desperate Measures update will release July 27.