Jagex used RuneFest to show the start of a fourth RuneScape MMO. The public page went up at play.runescape.com/4. A post from @Pirat_Nation on October 3, 2026, at 4:05 PM CT carried the news at the same moment (status 2106490758983229585). Secondary write-ups from Gematsu and GamesRadar match the page on the big points. This guide stays with what those sources actually support.
The useful way to read the reveal is as a boundary, not a brochure. Jagex told players the project exists, the engine family, the opening region, the rough place on the timeline, and the promise that the current games continue. It also published the list of questions it will not answer yet. If a clip, a forum thread, or a news recap adds a feature that is not on that page, treat the extra claim as unconfirmed.
What Jagex announced on October 3, 2026
RuneFest was underway in Birmingham when Jagex put the project in public. The official copy opens with a line the studio had clearly been holding: there was one more thing, and they meant it. The page calls the showing a first glimpse of work that had been quiet until then.
The confirmed description, in Jagex's own framing, is short.
- It is an entirely new RuneScape MMORPG.
- It is built in Unreal Engine.
- It is set in the world of Gielinor.
- The working title is RS4, because this is their fourth-generation RuneScape project. That title is not promised as the final name.
- It is still at the beginning of a hugely ambitious project, and the game is a few years away.
- They revealed it early on purpose, so players can be involved before a full reveal.
Jagex also published a six-point list it wants players to remember while everything else stays open:
- The fourth MMO is now in development.
- It is a new RuneScape MMORPG, built in Unreal Engine.
- It sits alongside RuneScape, Old School RuneScape, and Dragonwilds as an independent experience.
- It will be true to integrity, permanent progression, and community-driven development.
- It is set in Gielinor and begins in Ashenfall.
- It is still a few years away, and they are telling players now because they want to build it with them.
RS4 is a working title, not a launch name
Jagex's wording is careful, and it is easy to sand it down by accident. The page says the project is "rocking a working title: RS4." It then says that is not necessarily the name they will eventually settle on, but that RS4 fits while the project is the fourth-generation RuneScape effort.
"Not necessarily" is not the same sentence as "this name will be thrown out." GamesRadar's recap says RS4 will not be the name the MMO launches with. That is a stronger claim than the official line. Until Jagex retires the label, RS4 is the correct public name, and it should be spoken as a working title.
The "fourth" in the title is doing two jobs at once, and they should not be mashed together.
First, Jagex calls it a fourth-generation RuneScape project. Players have used "RuneScape 4" for years as a fan nickname for whatever might follow RuneScape 3. The studio is now using that nickname on purpose. It has not published a formal genealogy that says "Classic, then RuneScape 2, then RuneScape 3, then this." Do not invent that chart and attribute it to the announcement.
Second, the same page says "Our 4th MMO is now in development" and names the other three experiences it sits beside: RuneScape, Old School RuneScape, and Dragonwilds. In that sentence, "fourth" means a fourth ongoing game in the current family, not a sequel that retires the third. Both phrases are official. Neither one means Old School is generation two, Dragonwilds is generation three, or RS3 is over.
If the final title changes, the facts in this guide still attach to the project announced on October 3, 2026. If the title stays RS4, that will be a later confirmation, not something the RuneFest page already locked.
A new MMORPG in Unreal Engine, not an update
The clearest design statement on the page is that RS4 is entirely new. It is not a graphics pack, a combat rewrite, or a league inside a current client. It is not RuneScape with a new launcher skin, and it is not Dragonwilds season two under a different logo.
"Built in Unreal Engine" tells you the technology family and nothing finer. Jagex did not name an engine version. It did not say the camera is action-combat, tab-target, or tick-based. It did not say the game leaves the browser, ships on consoles, or stays on PC. Unreal is a toolset used for many kinds of online games. Naming it rules out "this is still the old RuneScape client with a new map." It does not rule in a control scheme.
The page does connect the engine choice to lessons, not to a port. Jagex wants to build on the best of the tech development learned on Dragonwilds, and the best of the community co-development learned through RuneScape and Old School, and apply those principles to something new. Read that as intent. A lesson transferred is not a system copied. Dragonwilds being a survival game does not make RS4 a survival game. Old School being poll-driven does not mean RS4 will use Old School's poll. Modern RuneScape using ability combat does not mean RS4 will use ability combat. Those are the three places the lessons come from. The new game is allowed to use them without becoming any one of them.
Calling it an MMORPG does confirm the category Jagex wants: a massively multiplayer online role-playing game in the RuneScape world. It does not confirm group size, server style, instancing, a player-to-player economy, or how many people share a zone. "Massively multiplayer" is the genre label they chose. The structure under that label is on the "too early" list, because progression and combat were named as open questions.
The setting: Sixth Age Gielinor, beginning in Ashenfall
RS4 is set in Gielinor, in the Sixth Age. That is a setting label players of modern RuneScape already know. In that game, the Sixth Age is the era after the death of Guthix. Jagex has not said RS4 retells that story, follows every later god plot, or treats quest outcomes from RuneScape as mandatory homework. The confirmed fact is the age, not a reading list.
The opening landmass is more specific than the age label. Jagex says the journey begins somewhere RuneScape players have only recently started to discover: Ashenfall. It describes Ashenfall as an area first explored in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, and as a landmass to the north-east of Gielinor. Put in plainer geography, Ashenfall sits northeast of mainland Gielinor. It is not Lumbridge with a new skybox, and it is not a renamed slice of the mainland map you already bank in.
Time has moved. RS4 takes place years after the events of Dragonwilds and the destruction of Dragon Queen Kuldra. Jagex says the world has moved on, and Ashenfall has changed with it. That single paragraph does a lot of work, and it is easy to over-read.
What it does confirm:
- Dragonwilds is earlier on this timeline than RS4.
- Kuldra's destruction has already happened by the time RS4 starts.
- Ashenfall is not presented as a frozen copy of the Dragonwilds map.
- Ashenfall is the beginning, not the whole planned world.
- How many years "years after" means.
- How Kuldra was destroyed, or whether that story is playable inside RS4.
- Which Dragonwilds settlements, resources, or characters return.
- A new villain, a new god, or a new quest line.
- That later regions are already designed, named, or promised as day-one content.
For a Dragonwilds player, the fair expectation is recognition, not a save transfer. You may know the landmass. You should expect it to have changed, because Jagex said it has. For a long-time RuneScape or Old School player, the fair expectation is that the wider map of Gielinor is the horizon, not the starting zone. Nobody has been handed a release-order for those later places.
What "a few years away" does and does not mean
Jagex says it thought hard about revealing the project this early. It could have kept the work private longer, "especially given that we are still right at the beginning of a hugely ambitious project and the game is still a few years away." The early reveal won because hiding it "didn't feel very RuneScape."
Two clocks are running, and mixing them up creates fake dates.
The development clock is "a few years away" from an announcement made on October 3, 2026. "A few" is not 2027, 2028, or 2029. It is not a quarter, a beta month, or a console certification window. Anyone adding a year to the headline is guessing. This guide will not.
The communication clock is narrower and more concrete. Jagex says it will tell players much more next year about the world, the game, the team building it, and how to start getting involved. Next year, relative to October 2026, is 2027. That is a promise of further disclosure. It is not a promise of a playable build, a closed test, or a launch.
The page also separates this moment from "the full reveal." What RuneFest got is the beginning. A signup sits on the official page for people who want to follow that journey. Joining a list is a way to hear the next official note. It does not create an account in a game that has no announced account system, and it does not reserve a name, a membership, or a platform entitlement.
Until Jagex replaces "a few years away" with a year, a window, or a test, the honest timeline sentence is the one they already wrote.
RS4 is not a replacement for Old School, RuneScape, or Dragonwilds
Jagex spends a full section telling players not to treat the announcement as a sunset notice. The sentence is blunt: RS4 is not a replacement for any of their games, be it Old School, RuneScape, or Dragonwilds. Those games have their own dedicated teams, exciting roadmaps, and continued investment. RS4 is meant to sit alongside them as an additional way to experience RuneScape and Gielinor.
The studio then explains why it thinks a larger family helps. Players may spend most of their time in one game, move between several, or discover Gielinor for the first time through RS4. The ambition is not to replace the games people love. It is to make the RuneScape universe bigger.
That is a product strategy statement. It is also a staffing statement. "Dedicated teams" and "continued investment" are how Jagex is answering the fear that a new Unreal project will quietly become the only funded RuneScape. The page does not publish headcount, budgets, or a pledge that no future live-service cut will ever happen. It does contradict the idea that RuneFest was a handover from the current games to RS4.
Some early coverage muddied this. A Polygon report on the reveal said Jagex had yet to confirm the future of RuneScape, Old School, and Dragonwilds, and treated RS4 as a fourth pillar in a way that left the other three looking uncertain. That conflicts with the public page, which confirms dedicated teams, roadmaps, and continued investment. When a write-up and play.runescape.com/4 disagree, use the page.
The same Polygon piece described the trailer as if players both fight and ride dragons, and it attributed extra development history to a pre-RuneFest briefing. Those details are not on the official announcement. They are not facts of this guide. Dragon riding is covered below as imagery, not as a system. Unconfirmed origin stories stay out.
How the new game sits next to the three you can play now
The three current games are different products that share a world. RS4 is being added as a fourth product. Knowing what each one already is makes the "alongside" promise easier to trust, and easier to test later.
Old School RuneScape is the live game built from the 2007-era backup, run with a public poll culture and a permanent account that keeps its skills, quests, and items between updates. It is its own branch of Gielinor. It is not sitting in the Sixth Age story that modern RuneScape has been telling for years. RuneFest 2026 also had Old School news, including Grand Exchange changes. That news is a separate topic. Nothing in the RS4 page rewrites Old School's combat, its tick, its poll, or its economy.
RuneScape, the game many players still call RS3, is the modern mainline client. Its Sixth Age is the era label RS4 is using. That shared label does not mean RS4 will copy RuneScape's ability combat, its microtransaction history, its quest log, or its membership rules. It means both games are being placed in the same broad age of the fiction. Jagex has not said progress, bank value, or quest flags move from one to the other.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds is the game that introduced Ashenfall. It launched as its own experience, and Jagex's September 15, 2026 release notes describe it reaching PC and consoles as RuneScape's first console release. RS4 starts on that landmass years later, after Kuldra's destruction, with the land changed. Dragonwilds remains a supported game with its own team. Playing it is not a beta for RS4. Beating it is not stated to unlock anything in RS4. The tech lessons Jagex wants to carry forward are lessons for the new team, not a patch note for the survival game.
A player can care about one of these and ignore the others. Jagex's own sentence allows that. A player can also move between them. What no sentence allows is the idea that signing up for RS4 news retires an Old School account, a RuneScape membership, or a Dragonwilds save.
If you play Old School or RuneScape on an account you already have, this announcement does not move that progress. AccountShark lists RuneScape accounts for people who want a start on the games that exist today. RS4 has no announced account system to shop for, and it should not be treated as one.
The design principles, and where they stop
Jagex names three principles and stops. Integrity, permanent progression, and community-driven development are the center of the design pitch "as a RuneScape game." They are not a systems document.
Integrity is a value word the studio is using across its 2026 language, including a wider note about fair play in the company description attached to other RuneFest news. On the RS4 page it is a principle, not a monetization spec. Membership was one of the questions Jagex refused to answer. Do not convert "integrity" into "no membership," "cheap membership," "cosmetics only," or "bonds on day one." Any of those could show up later. None of them has been said.
Permanent progression is the principle with the most history behind it, and the easiest one to fake a rulebook from. On Old School and on RuneScape, the ordinary account keeps its experience and its items. Seasonal experiments and temporary modes exist beside that, but the main game is not a wipe ladder. Jagex putting permanent progression at the center of RS4 is a strong hint that they want that kind of long-lived account, not a seasonal battle pass as the whole game. A hint is not a published rule. They have not said whether there are seasons, prestige resets, character wipes, or ironman-style modes. Progression was explicitly listed as too early to answer. Hold both thoughts at once: the principle is real, and the system is unpublished.
Community-driven development is the reason they gave for talking now. For 25 years, they say, RuneScape has been shaped by its players, and the games are at their best when built with players, not only for them. The early work they describe is sharing ideas, testing things, listening, and learning. That is a process promise. It is not a copy of Old School's poll threshold, a Discord council, or a public design document. How someone actually gets involved is part of what they say they will explain next year.
Taken together, the principles tell you what Jagex wants to be judged on later. They do not let a fan write the combat loop in advance and call it leaked design.
The trailer is imagery, not a feature list
RuneFest included footage. Jagex calls the moment a first glimpse. Gematsu points readers to a concept trailer. GamesRadar calls it a short teaser. Those are three labels for the same early video, and none of them is a feature grid.
The images in that footage show floating islands, a red dragon in flight, and a festival town. Describe them as images. A floating island is a piece of landscape, not a confirmed skilling zone or a travel network. A festival town is a place with a public, festive look, not a confirmed hub, Grand Exchange, or quest start. A red dragon in flight is a creature in the sky. It is not, by itself, a mount, a world boss, a slayer task, or a riding system.
Dragon riding in particular needs a hard line. Jagex has not confirmed it. Coverage that narrates the trailer as "players can fight and ride dragons" is adding a verb the official announcement does not use. Fighting a dragon and riding a dragon would be major systems, and combat is on the too-early list. Until a later official note says players ride dragons, the honest caption is: the reveal shows a red dragon flying.
The same rule covers art style. Unreal footage can look more cinematic than the current RuneScape or Old School clients. A cinematic frame is not a promise about draw distance, player count on screen, or how your character will actually move in the shipped game. Early concept trailers are often ahead of the playable build, which is why Jagex keeps saying this is the beginning.
Questions Jagex refused to answer yet
The page expects "a million questions" and then lists the ones it knows you have. The list is worth keeping intact, because it is also a denial list. As of the October 3, 2026 announcement, Jagex says it is not the right time, or it is simply too early, to answer:
- Which platforms?
- What accounts?
- Membership?
- Progression?
- Combat?
- Skills?
- When can you actually play it?
A practical way to use the list is as a filter on everything else you read this month.
| Topic | Official status on Oct 3, 2026 | Safe reading | | --- | --- | --- | | Working title RS4 | Confirmed, not necessarily final | Use RS4, and say it is a working title | | New MMORPG, not an update | Confirmed | Do not cover it as an RS3 or OSRS patch | | Unreal Engine | Confirmed, version unnamed | Do not invent UE5, or a camera style, from the word Unreal | | Gielinor, Sixth Age | Confirmed | Shared era label with modern RuneScape, not a quest checklist | | Starts in Ashenfall | Confirmed | Northeast landmass from Dragonwilds, changed by the new story | | Years after Kuldra's destruction | Confirmed | Dragonwilds is earlier; the gap in years is not numbered | | Grows beyond Ashenfall | Ambition, over time | Not a day-one mainland map | | Not a replacement | Confirmed | OSRS, RuneScape, and Dragonwilds keep teams and investment | | Integrity, permanent progression, community input | Named principles | Not a combat spec, poll charter, or monetization sheet | | A few years away | Confirmed phrase | Not a calendar year | | More next year on world, game, team, involvement | Confirmed for 2027 communication | Not a beta date | | Platforms, accounts, membership, progression, combat, skills, playable date | Too early | Any specific answer is a rumor | | Floating isles, red dragon in flight, festival town | Imagery in the reveal | Not mounts, raids, or hubs until Jagex says so | | Dragon riding | Not confirmed | Do not list it as a feature |
If a creator fills a cell in the right-hand column with a confident "yes," they are ahead of Jagex.
What players should not assume
The announcement is large enough to grow myths overnight. These are the ones the text does not support.
Do not assume a shutdown. Old School, RuneScape, and Dragonwilds are stated to continue. A new game can still pull attention, players, and staff over a period of years. That is a normal risk of a bigger lineup. It is not the same claim as "Jagex said the current games are done." They said the opposite.
Do not assume your account comes with you. Accounts and progression are unanswered. No sentence promises that an Old School bank, a RuneScape XP total, a membership stripe, or a Dragonwilds character appears inside RS4. No sentence promises the opposite either. The confirmed position is silence. Plan as if they are separate until an official note says otherwise.
Do not assume Old School's rules are the template. Community-driven development can mean polls, open dev blogs, test worlds, or something new. Permanent progression can mean several different account rules. Integrity can mean several different store rules. The template is "RuneScape-like priorities," not a cloned game design document.
Do not assume Dragonwilds' survival loop is the template. Ashenfall is the shared place name and the shared starting fiction. The new project is an MMORPG. Dragonwilds' crafting, hunger, or session shape are not listed as RS4 features. Tech lessons are not a genre label.
Do not assume modern RuneScape's combat is the template. Combat is an explicit unknown. So are skills. A Sixth Age setting does not install ability bars.
Do not assume a platform because a sibling game has it. Dragonwilds on consoles does not put RS4 on consoles. Old School in a browser does not put RS4 in a browser. Platforms are unanswered.
Do not assume a release year. "A few years away" plus "more next year" is not a launch year. Next year's news can still leave the game years out.
Do not assume the trailer is the feature list. Floating islands, a flying red dragon, and a festival town are what the footage shows. Riding that dragon is a claim Jagex has not made.
Do not assume the animated project is RS4's story mode. RuneFest also included a separate screen project, covered in the next section. It is not a gameplay mode, a cinematic chapter list, or a release vehicle for the MMO.
What you can do in 2026 without pretending RS4 is playable
There is no client to preload, no character creator, and no membership product named RS4. Acting like there is will mostly create room for scams. The official signup is on play.runescape.com/4. If a random site, a Discord DM, or a "beta key" seller claims a closer door than that page, it is not backed by this announcement.
What you can do is decide which current game, if any, you still want to play while RS4 is years out. Old School, RuneScape, and Dragonwilds are the games with live worlds, live teams, and actual accounts. Time spent there is time in a game that exists. It is not stated to be practice that Jagex will score when RS4 opens, and it is not wasted just because a new project was announced. The studio's position is that those worlds are supposed to keep going.
The other useful habit is archival. Save the official page, not a clipped headline. When 2027 notes arrive, the way to judge them is against the October 2026 boundaries: working title, new game, Unreal, Sixth Age, Ashenfall first, not a replacement, principles named, systems and date withheld. Anything that shows up later is a new confirmation. Anything that contradicts the "not a replacement" section would be a real change of plan, not a footnote.
The animated series is a different RuneFest announcement
The same weekend included news that is easy to staple onto RS4 and should not be. Jagex's own press release on October 3, 2026 says Lyrical Animation, Charlie "MoistCr1TiKaL" White, and Jagex are developing an animated RuneScape series. Variety reported the same project. Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy revealed it at RuneFest in Birmingham after the Old School keynote. Lyrical Animation is producing it with White's Meatier Productions. The aim, in Bellamy's words, is to bring Gielinor to the screen for people who already know it and for a new audience. Development is early. Further details are set for 2027.
That is a real announcement, and it is not an RS4 feature. The press release does not say the series adapts Ashenfall, Kuldra, or the new MMO. It does not name a network, a cast, or an episode count. It sits beside the game news as another way Jagex is talking about Gielinor beyond the current clients. If you only care about the MMO, you can file the series under "also at RuneFest" and go back to the game page.
How to read coverage that goes past the official page
Gematsu and GamesRadar are safe secondary sources for the announcement itself. They repeat the Unreal Engine plan, the standalone lineup, Ashenfall, the Sixth Age, the post-Kuldra timing, and the "few years away" line. Gematsu's piece is especially useful because it quotes the official post instead of rewriting it. Use them as corroboration. If a clause in either piece is tighter than the page, prefer the page. The launch-name certainty in some paraphrases is the example already noted.
Treat briefing-based color as a separate tier. A conversation with a producer can be real and still not be the announcement. If it adds dragon riding, a cancelled expansion title, or a claim that the other games are unconfirmed, it does not override the public post. Wait until that detail appears on an official Jagex URL before you plan around it.
Social posts can be faster than the page and worse than the page. The @Pirat_Nation status is a useful timestamp for when the news was moving on October 3 at 4:05 PM CT. The timestamp is not a design document. Screenshots of the trailer are still screenshots. A dragon in the sky remains a dragon in the sky.
The signup on the official site is the involvement path Jagex has actually offered. There is no other public on-ramp in the announcement.
FAQ
Is RS4 the final name?
No commitment either way. Jagex says RS4 is a working title for its fourth-generation RuneScape project, and that it is not necessarily the name they will settle on. Call it RS4 until they rename it. Do not announce a different final title.
Is RS4 replacing Old School RuneScape, RuneScape, or Dragonwilds?
No. The official page says it is not a replacement for any of those games. Each is described as having a dedicated team, a roadmap, and continued investment. RS4 is an additional way to be in Gielinor.
Is RS4 just a big update to RuneScape or Dragonwilds?
No. Jagex calls it an entirely new MMORPG. Dragonwilds is the place the story begins, years later, not the client being patched. RuneScape and Old School are separate games that continue.
When can I play RS4?
Jagex has not given a playable date. The game is "a few years away" from the October 3, 2026 announcement. They plan to say more next year, meaning 2027, about the world, the game, the team, and how to get involved. That 2027 note is not a launch date and not a beta date.
What engine is it using?
Unreal Engine. Jagex did not name a version number, a graphics preset, or a control scheme. Do not fill those in.
Where is it set, and what is Ashenfall?
It is set in Gielinor in the Sixth Age. It begins in Ashenfall, the landmass northeast of mainland Gielinor that players first explored in RuneScape: Dragonwilds. The new story is years after Dragonwilds and after Dragon Queen Kuldra was destroyed. Ashenfall has changed. Jagex's ambition is to grow beyond Ashenfall into places players know and into new places. That growth is described over time, not as a list of launch zones.
Will my Old School or RuneScape progress transfer?
Jagex has not said. Accounts and progression are on the list of things it is too early to answer. Do not assume a transfer, and do not assume a formal statement that transfers are impossible. Separate games are the only confirmed structure.
Is dragon riding in the game?
It is not confirmed. The reveal imagery includes a red dragon in flight, along with floating islands and a festival town. A creature on screen is not a mount announcement. Combat itself has not been described.
What platforms, membership, skills, and combat should I expect?
None yet. Jagex listed platforms, accounts, membership, progression, combat, skills, and the playable date as questions it will not answer at this stage. Sibling games being on consoles, or using particular skills, does not answer RS4.
Can I sign up for a beta or buy access?
The official page has a signup to follow the journey. Jagex has not announced a beta, a founder pack, a key, or an account product for RS4. Anything selling those is not supported by the announcement.
Does the animated series tell the RS4 story?
There is no such link in the official materials. A RuneScape animated series from Lyrical Animation, Charlie "MoistCr1TiKaL" White, and Jagex was also announced at RuneFest, confirmed by Jagex's press release and by Variety. It is early, with more detail aimed at 2027. It is a screen project about Gielinor, not a confirmed adaptation of RS4.
What should I trust if two articles disagree?
Trust play.runescape.com/4 over a recap. Use Gematsu and GamesRadar as secondary reports that track the page closely. If a line adds dragon riding, a firm launch year, a final title, or doubt about whether the current games continue, it has left the confirmed facts.
Sources
- Jagex, official announcement: play.runescape.com/4
- @Pirat_Nation, October 3, 2026, 4:05 PM CT: status 2106490758983229585
- Gematsu, October 3, 2026: New RuneScape MMO ‘RS4’ announced
- GamesRadar, October 4, 2026: Jagex announces a fourth RuneScape MMO made in Unreal Engine
- Jagex press release, October 3, 2026, animated series: Lyrical Animation, Charlie White, and Jagex
- Variety, October 3, 2026: RuneScape animated series in the works
