RuneScape Rolls Out New 120-Level Hero Pass Amid Community Backlash

Despite significant pushback from the RuneScape community, Jagex went through with its plans to introduce a new seasonal battle pass for the classic fantasy MMORPG. The new Hero Pass promises to refine how players engage with the game for “a more rewarding experience.”

The first Hero Pass, called Underworld, came out earlier this week featuring 120 levels that players will need to work through to unlock 54 cosmetics in the free track and an additional 94 cosmetics for subscribers, a.k.a. “premier members”.

“With RuneScape’s prior attempts in this space, we haven’t achieved the bar set by other battle pass systems — so we wanted to go back to the drawing board and introduce something much more complementary to the game that’s integrated with its core experience,” Jagex said.

The team assured players that the new battle pass rewards can be earned by the majority of players and even claimed that they’re worth the time to unlock. As with traditional battle pass systems, you’ll be able to progress through the reward track by completing special, daily, and weekly missions.

Meanwhile, angry players are still review bombing the game on Steam. Recent reviews have been sitting at Mostly Negative for the past few days with most complaints aimed at the Jagex’s over-the-top monetization practices, particularly since the RuneScape already has a cash shop, lockboxes, premium token currency, and now a new allegedly pay-to-win battle pass.

Jagex finally addressed player complaints with a statement on Discord saying that they’re looking into them but will be ignoring calls to remove the new battle pass system. “We’ve spent all day discussing your feedback at length and there’s been plenty of design discussions throughout today,” a community moderator said. “We are going to be sharing our plans to address key feedback points as soon as we can.”