Old School RuneScape is hosting the finals for its spring season of Deadman Mode Saturday, March 23 through Saturday, March 30. Deadman Mode is Old School RuneScape’s highly competitive and extremely difficult seasonal competition. Players enter a server in which all bets are off. Jagex, developers of OSRS, makes extensive changes to the game that affect drop rates, experience gains, and the game world as a whole. A prize pool of over $32,000 is up for grabs for the top 8 players, with $20,000 set aside for the winner.
How to watch
The Spring Finals will be streamed live on Old School RuneScape’s official Twitch channel. The event kicks off at 11:00 a.m. this Saturday. The Permadeath Stage will serve as the grand final on March 30. There will also be six players featured on stage at the live event: Mmorpg, Fools Justice, Manked, SoloMission, Psych, and Skill Specs.
What exactly is Deadman Mode?
There are far too many details to cover here, but the above video captures Deadman Mode well. One of the coolest aspects of the mode is that anyone can participate. It has features comparable in scope to seasons in Path of Exile or Diablo III. A three-month brawl open to anyone willing to accept the challenge, DMM is a high-octane refresh of OSRS’s world. In any competition, however, some must fall to make way for the victors. The tournament culminates in the top 2,000 players duking it out in the Permadeath Stage. Similar to with popular new battle royale titles, this stage forces players into smaller and smaller sections of the world, with no ability to respawn.
The final 256 players (previously 128) then begin the 1v1 event. The 1v1 tournament looks a lot more like a traditional esports competition than a community-wide game mode. Players get teleported into small 1v1 arenas where they compete in intense cage matches. This section of the event includes a live studio with hosts, casters, and a live audience. Players then fight their way to the top 8, where the prize money awaits them.
Old School RuneScape’s revival
RuneScape’s history spans 18 years, first released as a browser-only game in 2001. For some, it is nostalgia incarnate, and for others, it’s a relic from a bygone era. Pay heed, however, to Old School RuneScape and its rising success. Released in 2013, OSRS is a true-to-form recreation of RuneScape 2 as it was in 2007. Beyond this, the developers continue to release fresh new content that they select based on player polling. This new content comes in many forms, not least of which is Deadman Mode.
OSRS is free to play, but most of its content is behind a monthly subscription of $11. Players can, however, earn in-game currency (known as GP) to pay for their membership instead. The game released on mobile last October, finally giving players a way to interact with it in a more accessible way. Arguably the first multi-platform MMO, OSRS is poised to continue its meteoric rise. Don’t forget to tune into Deadman Mode this weekend!
