Jagex has cancelled RuneScape Reignited, the fresh-start character type it revealed at RuneFest 2026 on October 3, less than two weeks after announcing it. Associate creative director Ryan Philpott, known to players as Mod Ryan, announced the decision on October 15 in a blog post and video, and said it was a direct response to player feedback.
Reignited would have given new and returning players a new type of character on separate servers with its own economy, so that everyone on them started from scratch. According to PC Gamer, objections arrived almost immediately: players raised the risk of splitting the community, restrictions on how Reignited characters could interact with others, and the need to pay for a separate subscription. IGN reported that a vocal part of the player base argued Jagex should put its effort into the existing game instead.
Within days of the reveal, Jagex apologized to veteran players who felt pushed aside and said it was exploring heavy revisions to the mode. PC Gamer reported that the studio then published a specific list of planned changes and asked for more feedback before reaching its decision.
It is clear that we missed the mark on this, and so we are not moving forward with it. Our goal is to see RuneScape grow again, with returning players coming back and new players joining, but never at the expense of our existing community.
In the same post, Philpott pointed to the studio's history, saying that the last time Jagex ignored player feedback, combat changed permanently, and that it had taken more than a decade to recover from that.
Reignited had been scheduled for December 2. Jagex said it will instead release the Adventure Guide and the first part of the Remastered Journey on that date, along with other improvements. A 10-day free trial still runs from December 2 to December 12, giving new characters, and characters that have not held membership since June 2, access to members' worlds and content. IGN reported that Plugins remain scheduled for October 19 and that the 2027 roadmap is unchanged.
PC Gamer noted that Jagex has reversed course after player backlash before, dropping a planned RuneScape battle pass in 2023 and scrapping Treasure Hunter microtransactions in 2025. RuneScape 4, a separate Unreal Engine version of the MMO announced at the same RuneFest, has no release date.
