If you were born in the 1990s, some things just bring you back to the early 2000s. It could be music such as Eminem, shows like MTV Cribs, or video games. Ask anyone that went to elementary school throughout the early 2000s and a few games should be mentioned, but none more so than Runescape. The sandbox MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game) transformed your computer into a new world, where you quickly forgot about your hometown and local geography, now focusing on Lumbridge, Draynor, Falador, and Varrock. The goal was to grow your skills, play with your friends, and find new items to keep the game fun.
Many of us spent most of our precious after-school hours killing goblins in Lumbridge or smithing in Varrock, but if you ever got beyond the free to play version, the game became the biggest obsession you ever knew. More skills, more places, and way more content meant that a membership could grant you the chance to keep the playability strong. For us as kids, however, memberships were few and far between. My parents hardly knew how to use the internet, so they definitely weren’t letting me buy a membership with their credit card. My solution? None. But over 10 years after my Runescape years, I returned to the game to check out how nostalgic it would be. I returned to find that the game had released a classic version of itself that marketed the game from 2007 to modern day audiences. Known as Old School Runescape (OSRS), Jagex (the developer) brought the glory days back for the fans.
I can’t begin to describe how much nostalgia OSRS brings to those who played the game before. If you played Runescape from 2001 to 2010, I highly suggest giving it a shot, as you could find yourself back on your computer, completely hooked. If you have never played before, then this is the perfect time to answer that question that you wondered decades ago: “Why is Runescape so popular?” You won’t (okay, might) regret it!
Image: Jagex
