It’s been a generally long time since I heard about Runescape and an even longer time since I last played it. To my surprise, when I found out that there was this little thing called ‘Darkscape’, I was instantly allured by the prospect of some hardcore, open-world PvP. A world where I have to have situational awareness all the time? Yes, please! I’m already throwing my theoretically farmed Darkscape gold at my computer monitor to make it load faster.

First off, there’s no Darkscape Gold or Money Pouch that you can count on so as not to lose your precious coins when you suddenly bite the big one while out in the wilderness. This, by itself, is a big lure because, unlike the original Runescape, you can’t just go out and scream ‘YOLO’ at every damned thing you see. Even if you remove every other PvP-centric element in Darkscape, this is enough to sate my hardcore PvP senses because well all know well that losing ALL your Darkscape gold is enough to punish a player from progressing in such a hard world.

It’s definitely a step in the right direction in a world where MMOs these days baby their playerbase too much, making death nothing but a slap on the wrist. Darkscape, however, while punishing, isn’t so brutal as to completely deter other players from catching up with the others.

Gathering resources is also far more difficult as resource nodes will mostly only be found in high-threat areas and normally surrounded by powerful creatures such as Grotworms and even the fearsome Queen Black Dragon. Farming here becomes far more difficult than vanilla Runescape and will definitely put a dent in your Darkscape gold farming routine that you’ll probably carry over from Runescape.

Though it’s no longer a feature, Bank access in Darkscape were local to certain areas and could not be globally accessed. It was disabled because a lot of players didn’t like the idea of smuggling their stuff through high-risk areas just to be ganked by some wanker with an axe to grind. In my opinion, that should have been kept in, but I wouldn’t want to lose any of my Darkscape Gold either just by traversing some zones innocently.

All in all, Darkscape is shaping up to be an excellent addition to the already awesome Runescape franchise. It’s a small deviation that goes a long way that sates the more PvP-centric players that care little for PvE content and the generally babied atmosphere of Runescape.