For the first time ever, Jagex is launching a Runescape game on consoles, including the Nintendo Switch 2, which the Pocket Tactics team found more than a little surprising when Dragonwilds popped up in a Nintendo Direct. If I'm being honest, I never thought we'd see Runescape come to consoles, and I'm not the only one who had that assumption.
In an interview with The Game Business, Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy explains that a console release is something that the team "always assumed not to be right for us. Over the last 25 years, somebody somewhere looked at consoles, said it wasn't going to be possible, probably not even worth it, and the upside isn't that much. And that has just hung around in the walls of this place." I'd love to know who decided that, considering how huge the console market is. Still, Bellamy thinks it's time to usher in a new era.
"This is our first legitimate 'we're actually going to do this thing' moment. A new RuneScape product, tons of resources invested, tons of time invested, tons of heart. We're going to bring it to new platforms where historically we've never been, and therefore it will be hard to get off the ground."
While the team is right in finding it a bit intimidating to head into new territory, Bellamy claims that they've "done some numbers on this. We think there's about six million of our historical players on each of the main platforms, so Xbox and PlayStation, and then about twice that on Switch." Yes, you read that right: according to Jagex, 12 million of you Switch players out there have some history with Runescape.
In theory, if Jagex's risk pays off, the Nintendo Switch 2 might be the most successful console platform for Dragonwilds, though time will tell if that's actually the case. In Bellamy's words, "when we've been speaking with the platforms, I've been saying, 'Look, you don't need to create an audience for us. We have one. They're there. Let's bring them a game."
Are you going to be one of those prospective Switch 2 players? Let me know on the Pocket Tactics Discord.