RuneScape: Dragonwilds, the first non-MMO in the RuneScape universe, launched in April last year to an incredibly strong reception. “Very positive” reviews on Steam and a peak concurrent player count of over 50,000 gave developer Jagex the means and motivation to crack on, full steam ahead, with planning the future for its survival game. And plan they did.
Dragonwilds has a lot coming in 2026, with the second major expansion, Dowdun Reach, landing at the end of March (after the first, Fellhollow, released in December). Subtitled the “Madness of Zamorak,” a character RuneScape 3 fans will know as the god of chaos, power, and destruction, it’s the first content drop that won’t feature a dragon as the main boss.
Described as “labyrinthian” by the team at a press event at the Jagex headquarters earlier this month, Dowdun Reach will be considerably denser than Fellhollow, with the region focused on vertical exploration. It will have a huge castle environment, with seemingly much more linear paths and enemies in your way, as opposed to the usual open-world style the game has utilized so far. It’s almost like Elden Ring in a way, reminiscent of the Stormveil Castle location.
Described as a “fortified stronghold with battlements, armories, and inner chambers,” it turns out the castle will be the place to go for mithril-tier gear and weapons. However, a new enemy in the form of Black Knights will be around every corner, and as you go deeper, Blue Dragons will stand in your way.
Alongside the new region, the update will also do something many RuneScape players have been crying for since day one: increase the skill cap of every skill to 99. In a chat with Rick Turek and Jesse America, the creative director and executive producer on Dragonwilds respectively, Turek explained that until now, skills were capped at 50 because the developers “packed them with as much content” as they thought they could. “Increasing the skills to 99 will bring lots of cool, fun content, such as skills, passives, and recipes.”
As part of this skill cap update, the fishing skill is finally coming to the game too, and it’s a complete overhaul compared to what you’d find in the MMOs. It requires both accuracy and timing, as opposed to being a mostly idle experience, but combined with the recent addition of farming, it means Dragonwilds is becoming as much of a life sim as it is a survival game. In fact, America shared that when Jagex was in the planning stages for the game, it conducted a survey of 100,000 longtime RuneScape fans about what type of game they’d like to see next. While survival won, life sim wasn’t far behind.
Beyond Dowdun Reach, we know the following expansion will be called Umbral Sands, scheduled for release in Q2 2026. This one will “draw heavily on RuneScape sources,” according to both Turek and America in the Dragonwilds presentation, and flips the usual survival game trope on its head, as it makes nighttime the best time to venture into the world, due to the damage dealt by the blistering heat.
The biggest reveal here, however, is that after player feedback, Jagex will add more friendly NPCs to the game, including both merchants and questgivers. After all, RuneScape is known for its writing and charm when it comes to its characters, so I asked Turek about why Dragonwilds is so devoid of friendliness so far, and what we can expect on that front in the future:
“We’re never going to be the MMO with lots of NPC-filled hub towns,” he explained. “As part of the survival experience, you take away that mood if you start putting a bunch of friendly people in there. The idea of me versus the environment, the world, and this new frontier means there shouldn’t be lots of people happy and talking.
“However, saying that, we’ll be introducing more collective groups of NPCs with Umbral Sands, and we’re trying as much as possible to hit that RuneScape quintessential charisma and charm through our lore and journal entries, and item descriptions. Mod Raven, from RuneScape, is our lead narrative designer and he brings a lot of that authenticity and RuneScape charm into everything we write and put into the game.”
Two more expansions are confirmed for Dragonwilds, including one more before the 1.0 and console release towards the end of this year: Scorned Wilderness. We don’t know too much about this region as it isn’t even in development yet, but it will be considered as endgame content, and will introduce Runeite gear. Finally, Shadows of Ashenfall is coming after that 1.0 update, and according to this month’s presentation, will add a number of new mechanics that significantly change the game.
If you haven’t jumped on the Dragonwilds train yet, now is a great time to get on board. It may be a long way from feature complete, but it’s incredibly Valheim-inspired, in everything from the lay of the land to the physics-based way trees topple when you chop them down. 2026 sounds like it’ll be a big year for the game, and 2027 sounds like it could be even bigger when Shadows of Ashenfall lands. You can read more about the upcoming expansions at the official blog post.
