Introduction
Ashenfall's dragons have woken up, and Jagex built an entire survival-crafting spin-off around dealing with them. The skill system comes straight from RuneScape: woodcutting, mining and the rest of the familiar list, now running inside a standalone open-world game set on a continent that barely touches Gielinor's main story beyond shared lore. Development began in Steam Early Access on April 15, 2025. Three major region updates and eighteen months later, the game left Early Access for good on September 15, 2026. Its 1.0 launch reached PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 on the same day.
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Sorcery replaces half your toolbox
Dragonwilds hands out spells for jobs a lesser survival game would leave to a plain axe and pickaxe. A summoned spectral axe fells a tree in one hit. A shattering spell cracks open an ore vein faster than swinging a pick. A blink spell yanks a player out of a dragon's line of sight when things go wrong. All of it draws on runes gathered through Runecrafting. Training that skill means fewer manual swings and more quick casts during an ordinary resource run.
Thirteen real RuneScape skills, each levelled on its own
Thirteen skills carried over from RuneScape sit inside four categories: Combat, Gathering, Artisan and Support. Each one climbs to level 99 purely through repeated use, with no shared experience pool behind them. Hit level 16 in Woodcutting and the Axtral Projection spell lets one swing fell several trees at once. Mining unlocks Rocksplosion around level 45 for faster ore deposits. It's the same skill-by-doing habit RuneScape built its reputation on, just handed to a different genre.
A dragon war spanning the whole continent, closed out in one raid
Ashenfall splits into five regions, and each one is ruled by a different dragon or dragon ally loyal to the Dragon Queen Kuldra. The 1.0 launch adds the Scorned Wilderness, the first raid in the game, sending a co-op team across a chain of floating islands for a final confrontation with Kuldra herself. Beating her closes out the story arc Jagex calls Kuldra's Saga, though not Ashenfall's story overall.
Setting & Story
Ashenfall sits north-east of Gielinor's mainland, an unexplored corner of the map until wild, untethered magic called Anima started tearing through it. Players control an unnamed Adventurer who washes up near Bramblemead Village. The Wise Old Man there hands out the Dragon Slayer quest, effectively the game's tutorial, and it ends with the first serious boss fight against Velgar.
From there the story moves region by region. Each area answers to one of Kuldra's lieutenants:
- Velgar, a green dragon, rules Brynmoor and Ghornfell. He's the first of Kuldra's disciples to fall.
- Imaru holds Fellhollow. This undead blue dragon is bound up with the region's Withering curse.
- Dowdun Reach answers to Rasmodel, the Black Knight Titan commanding its mithril-tier fortress.
- Fuzan, a red dragon, rules the desert stretch of Umbral Sands.
- Kuldra sits above all of them: the five-headed Dragon Queen, also called the God-Eater after devouring the garou goddess Lougrim, and the target of the Scorned Wilderness raid.
Beating Kuldra closes this chapter of the story. Jagex has already said more Ashenfall lore is planned for future updates; the continent isn't finished once the raid ends. The soundtrack mixes reorchestrated RuneScape tracks with new original music, and classic monster names like Zogres and Black Knights return, reworked for Ashenfall.
Gameplay & Mechanics
Dragonwilds runs on four skill categories, and every skill inside them climbs independently to a cap of 99 through use:
- Combat: Attack, Magic, Ranged, Prayer
- Gathering: Woodcutting, Mining, Farming, Fishing
- Artisan: Runecrafting, Construction, Artisan, Cooking
- Support: Agility
The 1.0 update reworked combat too. It added a dedicated Special Attack resource, Visceral Attacks that trigger after a successful parry, Wands for faster and more mobile spellcasting, and more generous animation cancelling for the tougher dragon fights. Construction covers base building. A starting shelter can grow into a multi-room base with dedicated crafting stations, and placing a Lodestone there unlocks fast travel back to it from anywhere else in Ashenfall.
Up to four players can drop in and out of the same co-op game, or the whole campaign works solo. A relaxed Creative Mode strips out survival pressure for anyone who just wants to build. Jagex has also announced a permadeath-focused Hardcore Mode, though it hadn't shipped as of the 1.0 launch and no release window is confirmed yet. Crossplay is supported across every platform the 1.0 version ships on: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2.
Editions
The Standard Edition covers the full 1.0 release: everything built across Ashenfall's five launch regions, plus the new Scorned Wilderness raid. None of it is gated off for players who skipped Early Access.
A Digital Deluxe Edition Upgrade adds cosmetics on top, without touching combat balance. Jagex has confirmed every piece matches the stats of its regular in-game counterpart, and each one can still be upgraded later through Ascension Cores earned in Umbral Sands' Nightmare Crucible. It includes:
- Gilded Armour and Cape, a craftable set comparable to standard Level 4 armour;
- Six Old School RuneScape-inspired helmets, worn as side-grades at any material tier;
- Four decorative dragon-head wall mounts for player bases;
- Ten in-game paintings themed around Ashenfall's regions;
- Two animated home decorations: Muncher and a Chinchompa.
This upgrade is sold separately on Steam and Xbox. Players who already own the Standard Edition can add it on later without buying the base game a second time. A boxed Physical Deluxe Edition exists too, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, arriving later in 2026. It bundles the same digital cosmetics with a steelbook case, three skill-themed patches, five character cards and a cloth map of Ashenfall.