Winter Summit 2026

The Winter Summit 2026 was a livestream event that took place on 25 January 2026 where Jagex announced several potential upcoming updates,^[1] along with details on the already announced fourth raid,^[2] the Demonic Pacts League,^[3] and the Deadman: All Stars Season 3 Finale.^[4]

Rewards from The Blood Moon Rises, rewards from the Demonic Pacts League, The Fractured Archive, Sailing changes, and The Ides of Milk and rewards from its new boss were polled; all except the proposal to separate cannonballs into dwarf multicannon-specific and Sailing-specific cannonballs passed.

First announced at RuneFest 2025, a new seasonal Deadman variant, Deadman: Annihilation, is set to release on 30 January 2026. Notable changes from past Deadman variants includes the removal of bank keys, a reworked sigil system (where some sigils are now permanent unlocks instead of items that need to be toggled), and the addition of the dogsword, the thunder khopesh, and the Ruinous Powers.

The sixth League will be the Demonic Pacts League. Notably, the League will be hosted by Yama, who has taken the Sage prisoner. Various features in the Demonic Pacts League include:

• Region-locking, but with a new starting region (i.e. not Misthalin)
• The return of echo bosses from the Raging Echoes League
• Demonic Pacts, which are intended to be a "less linear" version of Combat Masteries from the Raging Echoes League and Grid Master

Proposed rewards from the Demonic Pacts League include:

• Demonic Pacts Outfit and Banner
• Home teleport animation override
• Demonic throne cosmetic override, making it resemble Yama's throne
• Thrall cosmetic override, turning them into imps
• Weapon ornament kits for the trident of the seas, trident of the swamp, Iban's staff, and the soulreaper axe
• Slayer helm ornament kit that makes it resemble oathplate armour
• Demon butler ornament kit that gives him a tuxedo
• Red skin colour

With the success of 2024's Project Rebalance and the 2025 Summer Sweep-Up, Jagex is looking to make them an annual occurrence. No specific changes were given during the Summit, but Jagex planned to announce more details at a later date.

First announced at RuneFest 2025, The Blood Moon Rises is the final quest in the Myreque quest series. Proposed rewards from the quest include an upgrade to the blisterwood flail and a two-handed melee weapon with a special attack that always deals 70% of the weapon's max hit.

Completion of the quest also unlocks access to Vampyrium, with the following proposed activities:

• Bloodwood trees - Woodcutting method that provides bloodwood sap, used to upgrade arrows into "seeker arrows" that have +23 Ranged accuracy and a minimum hit of 3
• Stymphikes - a two-part Hunter method that involves gathering tradeable bait (active process) and using the bait to lure Stymphikes (more relaxed/AFK process)
• Leechfins - Fishing method similar in intensity to catching raw bream in Neypotzli, which can be made into leechfin sandwiches
  • Leechfin sandwiches heal 16 hitpoints, have an attack delay of 2 ticks (identical to cooked karambwan, but cannot be used as combo food) and sets the player's eat delay to 9 ticks (triple the normal amount), but the next successful melee hit in the next 12 seconds heals an additional 16 hitpoints
• Venators - higher-intensity alternative for vampyre Slayer tasks, with better odds of a blood shard compared to vyrewatch sentinels
  • While mainly gated behind vampyre Slayer tasks, hunting Stymphikes gives access to limited off-task opportunities to kill venators
• The Maggot King - solo boss encounter that can drop the crimson bludgeon and the alpha venator tooth, used in making the necklace of pursuit
  • Crimson bludgeon - 4-tick crush weapon with a special attack similar to that of dragon claws, but optimised for crush-weak enemies
  • Necklace of pursuit - new best-in-slot Ranged necklace, created by combining an alpha venator tooth with a necklace of anguish

Unlike the previous two seasons (whose finales were held online), the finale for Deadman: All Stars Season 3 will be a live LAN event held on 20 June 2026 at the Rosemont Theatre in Chicago, USA. Over 4,000 tickets for the finale go on sale with a 24-hour pre-sale for active players on Feb 20th (i.e. those able to open the Jagex Launcher on this day, or those who have opted into email communications), and a general release on Feb 21st.

First demoed with the Grid Master community event in October 2025, a customisable bingo board system will be added for clans in autumn 2026.

RuneFest 2026 will take place on 3 and 4 October 2026 at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, United Kingdom. It is expected to be double the size of RuneFest 2025. 6,000 tickets are planned to go on sale some time in the spring. Additionally, Jagex stated that they were "working on fun ideas to bring more of the show experience to you digitally", for players who cannot attend the event in-person.

The Fractured Archive will be the fourth raid in Old School RuneScape. Created by Guthix himself, the Archive contains artefacts and knowledge prized by the now-slumbering god, though players will have to fight their way through various guardians and followers of other gods to obtain his treasures. Access requires completion of While Guthix Sleeps; though this would prohibit some builds from accessing the encounter, Jagex will talk more about accommodating all players in a future blog.

Similar to the Theatre of Blood, The Fractured Archive will have no puzzle rooms, instead being a boss rush where each boss has simple mechanics. Up to eight players can enter the raid, though the raid is currently planned to scale between 2-8 players, making solo completions possible but difficult. On release, all players dying will reset the raid.

A few weeks after the raid's release, the following changes will be made:

• A practice mode will be added, where players can jump to any boss in the raid and practice its mechanics on the regular difficulty
• Wiping will become similar to Tombs of Amascut, with infinite tries but reduced rewards with every wipe

Originally created during a Game Jam, The Ides of Milk is a free-to-play quest that grants access to a repeatable bull boss, also accessible to free-to-play players. Proposed rewards from the boss include:

• Cow bell amulet - untradeable, charged with air runes, teleports the player to the Lumbridge cow field and makes milking dairy cows 1 tick faster
• Rump steak - heals 10 hitpoints
• Bull bones - works similarly to the giant bones dropped by Obor and Bryophyta
• Cow slippers (members only) - cosmetic item
• Bottomless milk bucket (members only) - untradeable, stores buckets of milk and other milk-based products
• Mooleta (members only) - untradeable melee offhand with stats roughly equivalent to a steel defender
• Pet (members only)

An event to celebrate RuneScape's 25th anniversary is planned for February 2026.

Servers in Latin America are planned for "the next few months", with servers in more regions due for a later date.

Sailing is expected to receive many changes throughout 2026:

• 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

• Work on the new renderer is still ongoing
• More announcements on official HD are planned, after the new renderer is finished and it replaces the legacy renderer
• Work on a plugin API for the official client is being paused to allow for more work on official HD and mobile improvements

• Deadman: Annihilation - Everything You Need To Know
• Deadman: Annihilation & All-Stars 3
• Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts - Announcement
• The Blood Moon Rises - Overview
• The Fractured Archive - First Look
• Sailing Into 2026
• Sailing Player-Designed Island Competition Finalists
• Winter Summit 2026 - Overview
• Old School Roadmap

v t e Real-world events
Game Jams	Game Jam I Game Jam II Game Jam III Game Jam IV Game Jam V Game Jam VI Game Jam VII
Summits	Summer 2021 Winter 2022 Summer 2023 Winter 2024 Summer 2024 Winter 2026
RuneFests	RuneFest 2013 RuneFest 2014 RuneFest 2015 RuneFest 2016 RuneFest 2017 RuneFest 2018 RuneFest 2019 RuneFest 2025 RuneFest 2026
Other	Summer Games Done Quick 2024 Deadman: All Stars Season 3 Finale event