I’ve felt for the last several years that, once you play one survival game, you’ve more or less played them all. The fact of the matter is that there are only so many ways you can repackage the acts of collecting sticks, picking up rocks, drinking water, and eating cooked rabbit, then building a shack, before it starts to grow stale. But despite it all, Jagex found a way to make RuneScape: Dragonwilds feel fresh, fun, and exciting in a sea of lookalike survival crafting games.
After playing it for myself for a couple of hours, I’m really intrigued and excited about what the future could hold for the game. RuneScape: Dragonwilds definitely seems like more than just another crafting survival game so far.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds shadow dropped this week on Steam Early Access after just getting announced only a couple of weeks ago. Not only did it release in a surprisingly polished and feature-rich state, but there’s already a thorough roadmap with tons of plans for future content, features, and more.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds Hands-On Impressions
Character creation is pretty bare bones in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, but that’s surely an area that will see additions over time. You can select a body type, hair style and color, eye color, and a few other options so it’s enough to get started with the game.
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes
Notably, RuneScape: Dragonwilds begins with a very nice illustrated cutscene featuring some stellar motion graphics and art work alongside superb voice acting. I was really shocked to see something of such high-quality for an Early Access release. You’ll pick up on my pleasantly surprised attitude being a bit of a theme here throughout these impressions.
Just like most other survival games, you speak to a wise NPC who sets you off on an adventure to collect sticks, gather rocks, and learn the basics of survival. The real secret sauce of RuneScape: Dragonwilds becomes apparent though the very moment you start to interact with anything in the world.
Just like in the main RuneScape game, you earn XP for doing pretty much anything. The classic MMO was one of the very first games to ever utilize a leveling system of that kind and they’ve adapted that exact same format here. Everything from collecting wood, chopping trees, crafting materials, and so on is gradually leveling each of your individual skills.
In terms of gameplay flow, it feels fantastic. The UX is really dialed in here in such a way that the sound effect and visuals absolutely tap into the dopamine centers of your brain and make you want to keep earning the dings and bursts of fanfare. I felt like a hero every time I plucked a berry from a bush.
But then it goes a step further. As you expand each of your skills, you’ll gradually unlock more nuance within that skill to represent your increased proficiency. For example, once I leveled up my woodcutting a few ranks, I could start chopping overhead instead of just horizontally. This let me break down large logs after chopping the tree itself. Another example is unlocking the ability to parry after fighting enough creatures using melee weapons.
It’s a simple system in concept, but in practice every single thing you do is rewarded in such a satisfying way that it definitely feeds into that addictive sense of progress in some really magical ways.
Speaking of magic, that’s another element that RuneScape: Dragonwilds introduces to shake things up. In addition to the typical resources like wood and stone, there are magical sources with floating rocks spread around the continent as well. Breaking these apart gives you rune stones, which can be channeled for casting magic. And magic in RuneScape: Dragonwilds is seriously useful.
There’s a ‘rocksplosion’ ability that you can detonate in an area on the ground and it instantly vaporizes rock deposits and rune stones into their raw materials. It’s extremely satisfying and very useful.
Eventually I started building a house of my own to place my bed and some storage crates. I never felt pressured to spend much time building, which was kind of nice, but I imagine that side of things will get some love and attention soon. For now, I was relieved to find actual NPCs to talk to, quests to complete, and areas to explore since most games in this genre are seriously lacking in those elements out of the gate.
Near the end of my first play session last night I was able to explore a dungeon and see what that’s like and generally speaking combat is pretty solid. I had a mace and shield crafted and was able to block, parry, and dodge so everything felt very natural. I’m most interested in seeing how those elements are expanded beyond what we have right now.
I only spent a couple of hours learning the basics in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, but I can absolutely tell this is going to be a special survival game if they can dial in on what sets it apart.
If you’ve ever played Old School RuneScape, or even modern RuneScape, there is a good chance you’ll find a lot of familiar things in Dragonwilds. Many of the items, critters, and NPCs are named and designed after their main game counterparts. I haven’t actively played RuneScape in many, many years but I still got a nice surge of nostalgia booting this new game up for the first time.
What stood out to me above all else is just how polished and complete of an experience RuneScape: Dragonwilds is from the jump. Looking back over the years, games like Valheim, Enshrouded, Rust, and so many others often suffered from rocky launches. Whether it be bugs, poor performance, missing basic features, or some combination of factors it’s usually expected for a Steam Early Access release to have a tough start out of the gate. That’s not the case here.
What makes it even more surprising is the fact that it was announced, promoted, and surprise released all in the span of about two weeks. That’s wild.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds is only available on PC right now via Steam Early Access, but the developer is planning to eventually bring the game to consoles as well.
So far, RuneScape: Dragonwilds is off to a very strong start and it’ll be interesting to see how Jagex decides to grow and expand the game over the next year. Currently, they’re targeting an “early 2026” timeframe for a full release.
Disclosure: A representative on behalf of Jagex provided me with a digital download code for RuneScape: Dragonwilds on Steam for the purposes of this coverage.
