Old School RuneScape ship combat and 2025 Sailing Alpha detailed by Jagex

In a recent behind-the-scenes development blog post, Jagex shined the spotlight on Old School RuneScape‘s upcoming Sailing skill. In it, the developer shows how sailing has improved over time and confirms that players will be able to test it out next year.

Jagex put new skills to a poll for Old School RuneScape players in 2023, and Sailing was the skill that won. Since then, crafting the new system’s been hard at work, and getting a handful of players in to try it out in Closed Tech Alpha sessions. Of course, the main thing players care about now is when they’ll have a chance to try the skill out, and Jagex confirmed that Open Tech Alphas will begin early next year with more than a few interesting features to make Sailing a skill worth grinding.

Sail, Salvage, Shipwreck

There are so many interesting tidbits in this development blog post, but I want to highlight just a few that I think make Sailing a great reason to get into Old School RuneScape now ahead of the skill’s debut. First, an underrated feature in the post shows off ship-to-ship combat.

Jagex explains how it had to work quite hard to get this to work, with spells hitting players only when the sides of their ships line up. I think it’ll make sailing so much more thrilling if someone can come along and take you down after you’ve plundered a tonne of treasure.

Speaking of plundering, Jagex hinted that among the activities you can complete to level up your Sailing skill are salvaging shipwrecks and picking up missions for ports. In the starting area in the map shown above, the sea has been highlighted to show the area where you’ll be doing these things as you get to grips with the new skill.

I imagine Port Tasks will see you deliver goods from one port to another, while Salvaging will be more involved and should see you head to specific points at sea to recover lost items. This is just the start, though, and I’m sure Jagex has more in store for the Sailing skill.

With the first open playtests not starting until 2025, you might think the Old School RuneScape community wants things to move a little faster. This is absolutely not the case, though, with many fans praising Jagex for showing what it’s done and continuing to take its time in over on the game’s subreddit.

For real, I’m really excited about sailing and will happily let them cook, but it really does sound like even if it doesn’t end up releasing, they’ve learned and added so many new things that could be used for future content. I wouldn’t have been against Shamanism but it really felt like more of the same, whereas Sailing can really spice things up.

Reddit user MeisterHeller

I love games like Dredge and, honestly, any game that involves seafaring. I think Sailing is a superb fit for Old School RuneScape and will give fans like me who want something different from the standard set of skills to constantly grind to really get stuck into.