RuneFest 2019 Reveals: New Expansions, Dinosaur Raising, Archaeology Skill, And Mobile Early Access

RuneFest 2019 is in the books, and it came with lots of major announcements for players of Jagex's venerable MMORPG. The highlight feature coming to RuneScape is the Archaeology skill, the first new skill in four years and the 28th overall. Arriving in January 2020, Archaeology will see players digging up sites all over Gielinor, unearthing "powerful relics and weapons" along with "knowledge and demon pacts that have been lost to time." But most importantly, powerful relics and weapons, right?

If digging up the bones of dinosaurs (and other animals) isn't enough for you, how about having one of your very own? The upcoming Ranch Out Of Time update will let players "raise, nurture and farm monstrous Gielinorian dinosaurs." It will also increase the cap on Farming and Herblore to 120, which will let players extract ... something ... from their dinosaurs to brew new and powerful potions. We're sure Steggy and Rex won't mind.

Fans of Old School Runescape can look forward to the Morytania expansion in early 2020, which will open up the vampyre city of Darkmeyer. It will also offer Sins of the Father, the penultimate quest in the Myreque series, and a new group boss, the Nightmare of Ashihama. Prior to the expansion's launch, on Nov. 14, OSRS will see the implementation of "leagues," limited-time content that will have players taking on Ironman content on Zeah. A new clan system, which will let players track their own events and compete with other clans, is also on the horizon.

Over the course of 2020, Jagex plans to add a bunch more quests, including Desperate Measures, which picks up the storyline that began with Desperate Time and The Land Out of Time, a new City of Senntisten quest, and Elder God Wars Dungeon, which sounds dangerous. Less certain to see development next year are improvements like a faster loading screen, better optimizations, easier navigation and "big changes to the movement system." They're all in the prototyping stages, so Jagex cautions that they might not make it into the live game.

If you prefer your RuneScaping on the go, RuneScape Mobile is almost ready for early access, which will arrive later this year for all RuneScape subscribers. It will offer cross-platform play between mobile and desktop, with a new UI custom designed for touchscreens.

Other highlights of RuneFest included the Golden Gnome awards, with the top award going to comics creator Prezleek, and Jagex's CEO Phil Mansell presenting three checks totaling £175,636 to a trio of charities. For all this and everything else that went down at RuneFest 2019, hit up the summary on the RuneScape site.