RuneScape World of Warcraft Rivalry Faces Jagex’s October Test

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Jagex has put a date on RuneScape’s biggest promise

Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy has said his ambition is for RuneScape to overtake World of Warcraft and become the number one MMO brand in the world. The concrete test of that ambition arrives on October 3, 2026, at RuneFest, where Bellamy told The Game Business that Jagex will announce something intended to bring lapsed RuneScape players back.

That is the strongest development here because it turns a familiar executive aspiration into a near-term obligation. Bellamy’s quote, reported by VGC from The Game Business interview, is deliberately bold: “The dream is that we’re not the number two biggest MMO brand in the world, we’re number one.” He also acknowledged the scale of the task, saying there is “a big old gap” between RuneScape and number one, but argued that Jagex can make headway if it gets the next phase right.

The phrase “RuneScape World of Warcraft rival” usually invites a numbers argument, but Bellamy’s comments are framed around brand position, player return, and long-term MMO stewardship. Jagex is not claiming that a single October announcement will topple Blizzard’s MMO. The claim on the table is narrower and more interesting: after removing an unpopular monetization layer and taking a revenue hit, Jagex believes it has reset RuneScape enough to start asking old players for their time again.

The October reveal has to be content, not contrition

Bellamy’s own language makes the October RuneFest reveal a content test. Speaking to The Game Business, he said changing monetization was “setting the table,” but warned that setting the table does not automatically create growth. “You need to put something on the table to bring people in,” he said, adding that the October 3 announcement would be Jagex’s equivalent of “putting a feast on the table.”

That distinction matters for a 25-year-old MMO. RuneScape players have already lived through eras of systems being bolted on, streamlined, removed, softened, or defended. A return campaign cannot be carried by saying the game is less annoying than it was. It has to show a progression reason to log in, a social reason to bring friends back, and enough design confidence to convince players that the next year will not collapse into another cycle of daily pressure and reward anxiety.

VGC reports that Bellamy said the announcement is designed to win back lapsed players and will happen “much sooner than many people expect.” What is confirmed is the RuneFest date and the stated aim. What remains unannounced is the form: Jagex has not, in the supplied source material, confirmed whether this is an expansion-scale update, a major questline, a combat or skilling rework, a new progression track, or something that reaches across RuneScape’s wider family of games. For players deciding whether to resubscribe now, that gap is important. The practical answer is simple: if your interest depends on the new content, wait for the October 3 reveal.

Treasure Hunter’s removal bought goodwill, but it also created pressure

One of the clearest reported steps in Jagex’s RuneScape MMO plans was the removal of Treasure Hunter last year. VGC describes Treasure Hunter as a microtransaction perk that let players boost XP and gold, made Jagex a lot of money, and was unpopular with players. Bellamy told The Game Business that RuneScape revenue is down “quite a large chunk” as a result, while member numbers had stabilized instead of dropping for the first time in four years.

That is the trust side of the RuneScape World of Warcraft story. Removing a lucrative system is a meaningful signal, but it is also a debt. It tells the community that Jagex is willing to trade short-term revenue for a healthier game, then asks the same community to judge whether the replacement strategy has substance. For an MMO, where progression systems are the heart of the relationship between developer and player, monetization cannot be separated from design. XP boosts and gold pressure affect how players value skilling, quest rewards, boss drops, and account milestones.

Bellamy also said Jagex had spent the last year removing monetization friction while “overhauling so much of the clunkiness and the pain within the game.” He described the intended direction as “less daily, less FOMO, less of the rubbish.” That language is pointed because it identifies the enemy as cadence abuse as much as store pressure. A game can remove a disliked monetization feature and still lose players if its weekly rhythm feels like obligation rather than adventure. October has to show that the new cadence can sustain RuneScape without falling back on the habits Jagex says it is moving away from.

Becoming the number one MMO is a portfolio argument

Eurogamer’s report adds an important detail to Bellamy’s target: he said that, in five years, he wants “at least three” very large and growing RuneScape games serving a combined multi-million person audience. Eurogamer identifies those as RuneScape, Old School RuneScape, and RuneScape: Dragonwilds, with Dragonwilds described as Jagex’s survival crafting addition and reported as launching out of Early Access later this September.

That makes the Jagex number one MMO goal less like a single-game duel and more like a portfolio strategy. World of Warcraft remains the comparison point in Bellamy’s comments, but Jagex is discussing RuneScape as a brand with multiple entry points: the long-running modern game, the classic-form Old School RuneScape, and a newer survival crafting project. Bellamy rejected concern about splitting the audience by using an ice-cream analogy in Eurogamer’s report: if strawberry outsells chocolate, the company still wants to sell ice-cream.

From a systems perspective, that approach has advantages and risks. Old School RuneScape and RuneScape already serve different appetites for progression, combat feel, interface complexity, nostalgia, and update philosophy. Dragonwilds broadens the funnel again by moving into survival crafting. The risk is that “RuneScape” becomes a label spread across audiences with different expectations for grind, social play, lore delivery, and monetization. The opportunity is that Jagex can stop treating one game client as the only route back into Gielinor.

Old School’s five-hour sessions show the strength Jagex cannot fake

Eurogamer reports that Bellamy highlighted Old School RuneScape’s average daily play session as just under five hours, with the playerbase averaging 32 years old. Bellamy also joked that he was logged into Old School while doing his job, fishing, and described the familiar second-screen reality of people keeping Old School open while doing other work.

That detail is easy to treat as a meme, but it speaks to a durable MMO design advantage. RuneScape’s progression has always had a particular texture: long goals, low-friction repetition, account identity built through accumulated choices, and activities that can range from highly attentive bossing to almost meditative gathering. In a market crowded with seasonal resets and chore charts, that elasticity is valuable. It lets the same account hold a player’s focus during a hard quest, a skilling push, a boss grind, or a background fishing session.

For Jagex, the October challenge is to respect that elasticity. A lapsed player does not return only because a trailer promises scale. They return if the game gives them a sane path back into their account, explains what changed, rewards old investment without making the catch-up route feel punitive, and offers goals that fit both active and low-attention play. That is where cadence becomes as important as player numbers. A five-hour average session is powerful when it reflects voluntary routine. It becomes fragile if the game starts mistaking habit for limitless tolerance.

The World of Warcraft comparison is useful, but incomplete

The supplied source material does not provide independently comparable active-user figures for RuneScape and World of Warcraft, and Bellamy’s comments are about becoming the biggest MMO brand rather than winning a specific public concurrency chart. VGC says Bellamy was asked about Jagex’s claim that RuneScape is the second biggest MMO game behind Blizzard’s title. Eurogamer similarly frames the ambition as toppling World of Warcraft from the top spot. The evidence we have is therefore executive positioning, not a disclosed cross-market dataset.

That does not make the comparison meaningless. World of Warcraft is the symbolic crown because it represents MMO dominance over time: expansions, returning-player cycles, brand recognition, and a live-service machine capable of turning major beats into mass reactivation. If RuneScape wants to be discussed in that same top-slot language, it has to show consistency across its own strengths rather than imitate Blizzard’s structure.

The tension is that Jagex’s route to growth asks for patience from players who have already been trained to be skeptical. The studio has removed Treasure Hunter, accepted a revenue drop according to Bellamy, and says membership has stabilized. Now it has to prove the next step is a durable content plan. October 3 is therefore less a coronation than a checkpoint. If the RuneFest reveal gives returning players a clear reason to rebuild their routines, Jagex’s World of Warcraft ambition becomes easier to take seriously. If it is vague, overly distant, or disconnected from the trust reset Bellamy is describing, the “number one MMO” line will read like aspiration waiting for evidence.