Sailing/Development

Sailing was proposed to players as a new skill on 27 March 2023 in a blog alongside two other potential skills, Taming and Shamanism. This was followed by a poll to determine which of the three skills to further develop into a full proposal. Of the three proposed skills, the Sailing pitch received a plurality of votes in the Skill Pitches Poll (36.4% favour), with Shamanism coming in as a close second (33.4% favour).

After more development time and preparation, Sailing was pitched at Summer Summit 2023, followed by a poll to continue development and add it to the game. Sailing passed with 71.9% voting in favour of it, greenlighting it as the 24th skill.

Jagex hosts the New Skill Player Council Discord server, in which new skill related updates, modcasts, and community involvement take place.

There will occassionally be "Modcast" livestreams hosted by Jagex discussing various topics regarding Sailing, along with Q&A segments. They are recorded and uploaded to the official Old School RuneScape YouTube channel:

• Sailing: Discord Stages Modcast - May 3rd
• Sailing: Discord Stages Modcast - May 11th
• What's a Skill? | Sailing Modcast, May 26th
• Let’s Talk Sailing Progress Update! | OSRS Q&A Livestream May 20th
• Sailing: Behind the Scenes Vol. 1 Discord Stages Modcast - August 27th
• Old School RuneScape Sailing Behind the Scenes Vol. 1 | Discord Stages Modcast
• Sailing Gameplay Demo | OSRS Q&A Livestream December 11th
• Sailing Alpha Preview | OSRS Q&A Livestream March 18th
• Sailing Beta Preview | OSRS Livestream June 24th
• Sailing Poll 2: New Activities and Resources Dev Q&A | Old School RuneScape August 6th
• Sailing Poll 3: Sailing Slayer Creatures Dev Q&A | Old School RuneScape September 23rd
• Sailing Launches on November 19th! | OSRS Livestream October 28th
• Sailing PRE LAUNCH Q&A! | OSRS Livestream November 18th

A tech demo was released on 15 May 2023 showcasing a technical prototype of having a player walk on a ship's deck and being capable of sailing their ship:

• A First Look At Sailing Tech - Navigation Prototype (Demo)

Slides are presented and discussed during modcasts, and are separated by design stages. They are presented below in the order in which they were presented in.

• Introduction
• Feedback
• Moving the Ship
• Engine Tech Demo
• Accessing the Sea
• Sea Scale
• Sea Scale (Existing map)
• Sea Boundaries
• Types of Sea
• Navigation Variables
• Small Ships
• Large Ships
• Colossal Ships
• Collision
• Weather
• Early Game Summary
• Mid Game Summary
• Late Game Summary

• Multiple players on different levels of a ship.
• Key art for the Sailing skill.
• The Barracudas faction.
• Legends of the Sea concept.
• The Sailing Guild concept.
• A potential new island concept.
• A concept of an updated World Map.
• A concept of navigating rocks while sailing.
• Potential new items from various Sailing activities.
• A concept of the Great Conch island.
• The Oceanic Turtle Tribe that inhabits the Great Conch.
• A new slayer monster, the Gryphon.
• The Sailing skill cape.

	Scape Sail
The login screen music when Sailing was released

On 24 October 2025, Sailing's release date was officially announced. The new skill was released on 19 November 2025.

• Version 1
• Version 2

On 25 January 2026, at the Winter Summit 2026, Jagex revealed the Sailing roadmap for 2026. It includes:

• Next few weeks: increased weighting for gryphon Slayer tasks and gryphon task extension, quality-of-life changes (e.g. moveable facilities)
• Spring: rework of boat combat (e.g. increased acquisition rates of Sailing cannonballs, slower but harder-hitting cannons, new "fire at will" mode for crewmates, new sea kraken that drops the dragon cannon barrel)
• Summer: The Red Reef quest, NPC boat combat, player-designed island
• Autumn: new Barracuda Trial, sequel quest to an existing storyline
• Winter & beyond: sea expansion (new content within the Eastern, Untamed, Forgotten or Sunset Oceans), Fishing spots at sea