RuneScape creator reveals new MMO 10 years in the making

polygon.com:

Sometimes a game makes you feel soothed just by looking at a screenshot, even if it’s not that pretty. So it is with Brighter Shores, the new project from Andrew Gower, creator of hoary old massively multiplayer role-playing game RuneScape.

Along with his brother Paul, Gower did most of the early development work on RuneScape (which launched in 2001) and founded the studio that made it, Jagex. The Gowers cashed out and left Jagex back in 2010, and little has been heard of what Andrew has been up to since. Now we know: He’s spent much of that time — 10 years, apparently — making another old-school MMO with a comfortingly nerdy grid-based design. (The press release justifiably calls these orderly isometric dioramas Gower’s “instantly recognisable style.”)

Brighter Shores will be a free-to-play game with a “cozy, relaxing atmosphere.” It’s set in and around a peaceful coastal town in the fantasy land of Adothria. There’s a heavy focus on crafting, as well as three new character classes to try: Cryoknight, Hammermage, and Guardian. Gower says he aims to reduce the grind typical of this kind of game, and his studio Fen Research plans to offer an “all-inclusive” premium pass unlocking additional content rather than a lot of microtransactions.

After all this time, Gower has also finally left Java behind. RuneScape was launched as a browser game written in this humble programming language, and didn’t transition to its own client until 2016, after the Gowers had left. But Fen Research has built its own custom engine and programming language for Brighter Shores, called Fenforge. (Geographical trivia: both studio and engine are likely named after the Fens, a marshy flatland area in the east of England that extends north of Cambridge, where both Jagex and Fen Research are based.)

Brighter Shores will be coming to PC and Mac via Steam later this year.