Home Legendary RuneScape creator shows off new MMO after decade of development

Legendary RuneScape creator shows off new MMO after decade of development

TL:DR

  • Andrew Gower, legendary creator of RuneScape, announces a new MMO, Brighter Shores, developed over the last decade and set for a Q3 release this year.
  • Brighter Shores features unique gameplay that aims to reduce the grindy nature of typical MMOs.
  • The game's development, a labor of love by Gower and his team, promises an innovative player experience with potential to become another lasting legacy in the MMO genre.

Soon after the turn of the new century,  after we had all calmed down about the Millennium Bug bringing planes crashing out of the skies, and nuclear armageddon a little game called RuneScape came out. It’s still going, indeed we talked yesterday about how RuneScape publisher Jagex has been busy strengthening its management team.

The designer Andrew Gower and his brother Paul created one of gaming’s longest-lasting legacies. RuneScape and old-school RuneScape are still played by many to this day. So the news that Andrew has a new MMO coming out this year, and one that he has been working on for ten years should excite a lot of players.

Developed by his studio Fen Research, “Andrew Gower’s Brighter Shores” can be wishlisted on Steam as we speak, and is currently slated for a release at some point during Q3 this year. And to complete the circle of life, brother Paul is the game’s Narrative Designer.

Gower told PC Gamer via a statement, “Creating this game has been a real labor of love, At times it has felt like an insurmountably ambitious task, so it’s amazing to finally see it coming together in the way I hoped. I can’t wait to see the world full of players enjoying what we have created.”

Brighter Shores will release as free-to-play but will have a Premium Pass with more quests and professions, as well as a player-to-player trading system.

It has been designed with Gower’s own Fenforge engine, and as you can see from the image above, this has given it a unique look, reminiscent of RuneScape but what interests us most is Fen Research says it will seek to minimize the “grindy” gameplay that plagues the genre.

If they can all pull this off, we could be about to get another MMO that will stick around for the best part of a quarter of a century and more.

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Paul McNally
Gaming Editor

Paul McNally has been around consoles and computers since his parents bought him a Mattel Intellivision in 1980. He has been a prominent games journalist since the 1990s, spending over a decade as editor of popular print-based video games and computer magazines, including a market-leading PlayStation title published by IDG Media. Having spent time as Head of Communications at a professional sports club and working for high-profile charities such as the National Literacy Trust, he returned as Managing Editor in charge of large US-based technology websites in 2020. Paul has written high-end gaming content for GamePro, Official Australian PlayStation Magazine,…

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