When I was a preteen, finding RuneScape felt like discovering magic. However simplistic its visuals or its click-and-wait combat might have been, it was—as it was for so many wide-eyed youths gazing into the web browser of their family computers—my first taste of a world where I could gather alongside strangers in the sacred act of pretending to be cool medieval guys. It was a wonder: an expanse of goblins, barbarians, and armor-trimming scammers that I could wander at my leisure, whether I'd spend my next hours slaying dragons or doing the more honest work of trapping lobsters to sell at the western Varrock Bank.
It's a high that I'm still trying to match 20 years later, even after leaving the hometown RuneScape farmstead for the big city MMOs and their action bar gameplay. With two more decades of history in other online worlds under my belt, I was interested to see what I'd make of Brighter Shores, the new early access free-to-play MMO from original RuneScape designer Andrew Goyer.
