We LAN'd RuneScape: Dragonwilds for 8 hours straight, here's our thoughts

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I began playing RuneScape around 11 years old, enjoying hundreds of hours in the classic MMORPG with my close real-life friends, then it received its Evolution of Combat update, and we quit. The fire for no-exp-waste and completing tedious quests was relit when OldSchool RuneScape was announced.

After it was released, the same group of friends poured thousands of hours into OldSchool, pushing each of our characters to the point where we have achieved multiple 99s in skills, made hundreds of millions of GP, and ultimately, were able to complete the most end-game content available.

Then RuneScape: Dragonwilds was unveiled, and we all thought we should put this game to the test in the same way we used to play RuneScape as kids - a traditional LAN party where we bring all our PCs over to the same house, order pizza, drink soft drink, and play the game all day and night until we are falling asleep at the keyboard. So, that's what we did. Here's our experience from the perspective of four veteran RuneScape players in the new co-op survival crafting experience based on the classic MMORPG, RuneScape.

A Love Child of RuneScape and Valheim

Graphics

Any veteran RuneScape player would be immediately taken aback by the graphical approach Jagex took with Dragonwilds, as most of us have completely fallen in love with the classic low-polygon graphics of RuneScape that ooze nostalgia and charm.

However, Dragonwilds' graphics quickly grew on us, and we implore any RuneScape player to spend some time in the world before writing it off, as what's underneath the graphics is what we are here for (exactly like RuneScape). Before moving off graphics, we can say the world is overall very easy on the eyes. Structures, terrain, weapons, magic, enemies, and the day/night cycle all look great.

Combat

Dragonwilds' combat is nothing like RuneScape's, which at first felt odd considering the game was based in the world of Gielinor, but it's totally understandable. Having RuneScape's tick-based combat would have made Dragonwilds feel too close to RuneScape, but not the whole package, and would have considerably hindered the fluidity of the gameplay, possibly making it feel janky and unnecessarily restrictive. Dragonwilds combat includes simple auto attacks that end in a combo for extra damage, and special attacks by pressing the middle mouse button.

Without getting too into the nitty gritty, the combat feels very good, and while it is simple, consisting of spamming auto and special attacks, it is satisfying to take down various enemies, especially when in a group with Friendly Fire enabled. With Friendly Fire enabled, it forced us to take turns dealing damage to enemies by weaving in and out of close quarters, as our own attacks could easily kill each other. Each of the three combat styles do feel very nice as well: range, magic, and melee, all have their place and come with positives/negatives, albeit some balancing and polishing of hit/hurt boxes may be needed with specific weapons/attacks.

We can imagine that playing with Friendly Fire off the gameplay would eventually become boring, as you would all just end up piling on top of an enemy, spam clicking and dodging its attacks until it dies. Definitely play with Friendly Fire enabled, as it not only makes the game harder, but also funnier, as there were countless hilarious moments when we accidentally damaged each other that resulted in spontaneous deaths.

A problem we noticed was the lack of variation with enemies and the attacks they do. Unfortunately, this is quite an issue, especially for RuneScape players who are used to dealing with several different mechanics at once to overcome an enemy, or more importantly, a boss. We have chalked this up, along with the many other shortcomings of Dragonwilds, to the game being in early access, and we hope to see the addition of new mechanics and enemies implemented in future updates.

Skilling & Base Building

Dragonwilds has a truly intuitive and impressive base-building feature that enables players to get super creative with how they want to design and orient their home. There is plenty of variation when it comes to style, utility, and control. The base building was one of the most impressive aspects of the game, building upon the impressive freedom players have in Valheim while making solid improvements in design, structure placement, and the learning curve of building.

Skilling, being one of the most prominent aspects in traditional RuneScape alongside combat, has been worked into Dragonwilds somewhat accurately to the original game. Players have to gather flax, build a spinning wheel, and use the flax on the spinning wheel to create thread to build a bow. While different than RuneScape, as a bow requires a bow string, the basic principles are there.

This also applies to building armor, such as leather gear that requires "animal leather," which can be obtained from cows. This process is reminiscent of cow hides being turned into soft leather and eventually into wearable leather gear after being brought to a tanner in Old School RuneScape.

Skilling in Dragonwilds is also beautifully complemented with the magic skill, which works hand-in-hand with gathering the necessary materials for your next upgrade. We quickly realized how integral the magic skill is to effectively gathering as many materials as you can in the shortest amount of time. The animations for each of the magic spells look great, and a particular point of enjoyment was how the skill is tied into the world itself through the gathering of Rune Essence, which are scattered throughout the world in randomly placed fissures.

Just like in RuneScape, Rune Essence is converted into runes by using the essence on a rune altar, which players can build almost anywhere. This is the general gameplay progression we noticed at its most rudimentary form: gather materials to get access to basic spells, use those spells to farm materials more efficiently, explore and defeat any enemy you encounter through the use of forward bases by utilizing the materials around you, and place teleport loadstones for gear upgrades and restocking of survival consumables.

The Bad

While overall, Dragonwilds is a very good game, and something we certainly enjoyed over the course of the eight hours we played during a session. However, it isn't without its faults or shortcomings. Here's a list of where we think Jagex dropped the ball.

The world doesn't feel like Gielinor: The world of RuneScape is rich with lore and while some of this lore is engrained within Dragonwilds in the form of quests, items, and NPCs, we couldn't help but to feel there were some totally missed opportunities for incredible lore moments that could have made us go "oh wow that's exactly like how it is in RuneScape." For example, the Goblin Diplomacy quest in Dragonwilds is nothing like it is in RuneScape, nor is the quest line for Restless Ghost, yet both of these quests have the same name as the quests in Old School RuneScape.

While we understand it might be impossible to have an exact replica of these quests in Dragonwilds, we felt they should have at least captured the core essence of what the quests are in RuneScape, and in general, they should be implemented with the goal of being as close as possible to the original quest lines for both nostaligic purposes and any new players that may be crossing over from Dragonwilds to RuneScape. Unfortunately, this point of contention leads us to the wider problem we found with Dragonwilds - for a game based in Gielinor, it certainly doesn't feel like it.

We believe the lack of these "lore moments" is the crux of this issue, and while we appreciated mentions of God Wars bosses such as Bandos or the iconic Wise Old Man, these references the original game are very few and far between, resulting in the world failing to create the RuneScape atmosphere we know and love.

Other small negative points worth mentioning that we believe can be easily improved with future updates are the dungeon enemies. These felt very repetitive, lacked variation, and didn't have any "RuneScape" feel to them at all. We chalked this up to an early access problem.

Conclusion

Dragonwilds is a very well-made love child of RuneScape and Valheim. As players who have spent many thousands of hours between the two, we're incredibly impressed with the game's development so far. The atmosphere, combat, and world all feel alive and engaging, with the magic system standing out as a particular highlight. With how good it is this early into development, we can't wait to see how it evolves over the next few years.

• 8/10

The Good

• The magic system is incredible and flows nicely into the rest of the game
• The combat overall is fun and well-polished
• The base-building is solid, with some improvements on Valheim
• The world events are impactful and feel immersive
• Skilling is well-made and is nicely complemented with magic utility
• The music and atmosphere are great
• PvE/PvP feels solid and engaging
• All 3 combat styles have potential when fully implemented
• The runes/runecrafting system is designed well

The Bad

• The world doesn't feel like Gielinor, missed opportunities for lore moments
• The gear progression is lacking, considering OSRS/RS3 has some of the best progression out there
• The lore doesn't match the original at all
• A few small bugs
• Max 4 players (Kills the ability to have large PvP-focused servers and events)
• Dungeon enemies are a bit repetitive and not very "runescape" feeling