Hey 'Scapers!
Dungeoneering is a much-beloved skill that was originally released back in 2010. Since its initial release, however, it has rarely received updates which has led to it becoming quite outdated - both in gameplay and graphics. In spite of this, it has remained one of the top pieces of content that you've wanted to see remastered, as we found during the 2025 Player Survey. As recently as a month ago the community backed Dungeoneering as the most upvoted content to be remastered.
And that's the focus of our first "Remastered Content" project, which is part of our planned 2026 Content Updates. This particular project is slated for release in early May and today's blog gives you a preview of what we're working on as part of it.
What's in a Remaster?
This is actually something we've been debating internally when applying the term to RuneScape - A remaster traditionally would refer to taking an original file (usually visual or audio), and re-exporting that original file with modern standards in mind. But how does that apply to something gameplay specific like a skill in a game? "Overhauling" or "Reworking" the skill has connotations that the entire identity is changing. Refreshing could be more apt, but may not be applicable in all cases, especially when a Remaster does include elements of re-exporting original aspects at modern standards.
So what's the focus of this project?
The foundational gameplay loops of Daemonheim Dungeoneering are already solid. Repeatedly delving into the unknown to explore an ancient area of the world of Gielinor, all while needing to make do with the resources you're presented with, rather than relying on what you've otherwise amassed in the overworld. This skill is fundamentally about challenging you and your skills, without the backup of a mountain of wealth. While this promise still holds true today, the reality is that the skill itself feels a bit tired and outdated. As simple as this statement sounds, it is hugely important: Dungeoneering is a skill. It's a core part of the backbone of RuneScape as a whole, and should be revitalised with the proper care and attention deserving of that. We want to modernise those Dungeoneering fundamentals we mentioned above, so that it is more enjoyable to play and more rewarding to engage with over longer periods of time. We want to prepare it for a future where it can be occasionally tweaked without feeling that those changes are not far reaching enough because the foundations have not been adjusted.
With that in mind, the Dungeoneering Remaster project is focused primarily on improving the skill's gameplay, balance and mechanics without changing the core identity of the skill. We are also looking to improve some of the visual clarity in select art aspects such as lighting and VFX or improvements to textures, but the lion's share of our time is spent on that "coding" and gameplay aspect while the majority of our art team continues to focus on other projects that affect RuneScape on a broad scale (such as the Player Avatar project).
We're generally looking to remove unnecessary complexity, to make the skill more intuitive to understand and jump into. The intent here is to modernize and better set the skill up for the future, rather than add a slew of brand spanking new content to it now. That also means that we are not focusing on adding new floors, puzzle rooms, bosses or dungeons as part of this project.
How can you get involved?
We're previewing our design intentions in this blog today. We've know what we want to do, but we want to take this opportunity to check in with you and see if there are things you feel more or less strongly about.
This project is still in its early stages, and certain ideas mentioned here need to be properly investigated. While probable that not all of the "nice-to-haves" we cover today may be feasible or released with this update, the majority of what we're presenting today should be implemented.
With that in mind, please do join in the discussions this week and let us know:
Which of the features we've covered are you most excited about?
Which of the features we've covered do you have questions about?
What do you think is a nice to have, but you wouldn't want us to prioritize it over others?
Additionally, do weigh in with your own thoughts in the places where you feel we've missed something or haven't mentioned it.
The Details
Currently, Dungeoneering is a skill that we've observed many players primarily training using methods outside of Daemonheim dungeons - that includes Elite Dungeons, Tokens, Sinkholes, The Beach hole and (prior to their removal) XP lamps. To us this is a strong signal that the core balancing of the Daemonheim dungeons is in need of improving so that players have a greater desire to train this skill through its original vision, with any alternative methods being a "nice to have" that you occasionally switch to. Rebalancing Dungeoneering across multiple aspects, improving quality of life for the different communities that engage with Dungeoneering as well as implementing improved and more modern systems are just some of the ways we want to revitalize this skill.
Now that we've set some expectations, lets take a deeper look into the specifics!
Rebalancing Output (XP / GP / EFFICIENCY)
This is about improving the XP / GP / Efficiency ratios to make the skill more satisfying to engage with.
The end-of-floor XP differs greatly across all 60 floors, with lower-level floors (e.g. 35 and lower) usually getting rushed or skipped as they don't give worthwhile XP at higher levels.
We will rebalance floor XP to make all floors worth doing across all levels, decreasing the gap between the lowest and the highest floors. We will be mindful not to unbalance the early game for low level players, and we will still aim to maintain a feeling of progression across floor themes. This ties into our plans for the Prestige System, detailed further down.
Solo players don't always feel like they gain rewarding amounts of XP compared to when playing in a group.
We will make solo play much less punishing.
As part of this change we may consider removing the Dungeoneering Party Simulator item, as these have been largely obsolete since 2022 and the planned overall rebalancing should address the issues that the Dungeoneering Party Simulator was intended to address.
Different gameplay styles are currently not appropriately rewarded. Think exploring the dungeon vs speedrunning to the end.
We will keep rewarding highest efficiency and will consider reducing the penalty of guide mode (or removing it outright but improving critical path readability)
Dungeoneering XP will be gained from actions taken within the dungeon. For example, opening doors, gathering from resource nodes or exploring optional paths should provide Dungeoneering XP. When this change is implemented it would likely leave the Scroll of Daemonheim in an odd spot, rendering it largely obsolete. With that in mind, we will likely be removing the Scroll of Daemonheim.
There is no monetary value in Dungeoneering.
We want to look into adding resource bags as a reward for completing floors (Perhaps using similar items to Motherload Maw).
Bosses and mobs are generally outdated.
We will be looking over the stats of bosses and mobs, though we will need to be mindful of those instances when low level players are grouped together with high level players.
An important note to make here is that we don't want to drastically change the current flow of Dungeoneering that largely works - we're not planning to make changes towards an exhausting grind. What we're keen to achieve is that bosses feel like bosses once more, rather than mobs with a bit more health. Players should need to gear up for a boss fight and put effort into it. Conversely, mobs should not become so strong that they greatly slow down the pace of Dungeoneering.
A prospective change here might be increasing mob lifepoints while reducing their defence at the same time to even things out.
Mobs should also take the potential addition of Necromancy into account.
Elite Dungeons and Archaeology give a lot of tokens, which are more rewarding than doing the skill itself. Dungeoneering should be the main way of acquiring Tokens, rather than getting them through other non-core-skill means.
One consideration is to reduce the tokens gained from Archaeology and Elite Dungeons, primarily by reducing the moments at which they are received for the latter.
We may, however, feel that it's best to remove Token acquisition entirely from these activities.
XP Based Gorajo Cards are much too powerful, especially when combined with DXP events and create the kind of play-loop that is incompatible with our move towards a more integrity focused game.
We are investigating removing XP-Based Gorajo cards, but may remove the entire Gorajo Card system as many of the non-XP based cards have been found to not be particularly valuable.
Quality of Life
This is about removing undesirable friction or general clunkiness currently present in the skill - that includes removing unwanted timegates and addressing clunky aspects of puzzle and boss rooms. We've got a good grasp of what's important to you here already from previous discussions, but prioritization is still an important area that you could help us with for this set of notes.
No longer needing to have to bank before starting a dungeon - Instead, items would be automatically banked for you.
Relevant Keys and skills to be shown on the dungeon map.
Going from two clicks to open a Skill or a Key door down to one click.
Allowing Ironmen and mains to dungeoneer together (add right-click invite for ironmen).
Note: Our thinking here is that it should be easier for Ironmen to jump into Dungeoneering, instead of having to find a group of other Ironmen. This change would also make this system consistent with group bossing.
Investigating how skill door and puzzle requirements create impossible barriers for lower level players when playing with higher level players.
The likely change here: Move away from skill doors having a hard requirement ("You need a skill level of X to do that"). Instead, players could attempt to open the skill door, but at a greater fail chance of failure if you're of a lower level. The intended direction here is to enable low level players to get through a Dungeon, rather than slow high level players down.
Improving the Bind System by adding a small (but potentially expanding) Dungeoneering bank that is accessed via the Smuggler. This wouldn't be intended for hoarding, but should be an improvement on the existing limited loadout system. This system would use banking presets as you know them and would mean that you don't need to lose all your non-bound items at the end of each floor.
Prestige System Overhaul
The Prestige System in its current form is not very intuitive, as well as being very punishing to floor XP if it's not followed. Our plans here tie into the floor XP point detailed further up in the Rebalancing section - we want all 60 floors to feel worth doing at all levels, without punishing you if you don't follow the system to a T.
We will be fully removing the Prestige System in its current state, and replacing it with an end-of-floor buff system.
Floor XP will no longer be penalised by this system.
Completing a unique floor will give you a buff.
Buffs will be along the lines of XP boosts, Resource boosts, Token boosts, Damage reduction, etc.
There will be around 5-10 different buffs in total. These will stack up.
Buffs will be set relative to the amount of floors you have done, not assigned to each floor. For example, the buff for your first completed floor will be X% resource boost, regardless of if that floor is floor 3, or floor 55.
So, ticking off floors will instead mean that you have gained the buff from that floor.
As with the existing Prestige System, if you have already completed the floor but there is an uncompleted floor in the same theme, this will instead tick off and provide the buff from that floor instead.
Your buffs will reset automatically once you have completed the maximum number of floors currently available to you.
This does not refer to unique floors, but is instead a count that increases with any floor you complete.
These carry over between sessions, so there's no pressure to do as many floors as you can in a single session.
These reset automatically to avoid creating a meta of stacking 59 buffs and then simply repeating a completed high-level floor.
For example, this new system would look like the following in practice:
You complete 16 unique floors in total: floors 1-11 (all Frozen floors), 15, 23, 38, 45, and 60. This gains you 16 buffs (1 buff per unique floor), some of which will have stacked up.
Your buff reset count is now at 16.
You re-complete floor 45. As you have not yet completed all the Occult floors, this ticks off floor 36 for you and provides you with 1 buff (bringing you to a new total of 17 buffs).
Your buff reset count is now at 17.
You re-complete floor 1. As you have completed all the Frozen floors you do not get a new buff, but your floor XP is not penalised for the re-completion.
Your buff reset count is now at 18.
You continue on to complete 42 more floors. Upon completing the 60th floor any buffs you had reset, as you have completed 60 floors in total (60 being the number of floors that are available to you).
Adding New Skills
Since Dungeoneering's release a number of new skills have been added to the game, but not all of them are included in the Dungeoneering experience. This section considers what we plan to do, though this would also be one of the most time-intensive aspects of this project.
Necromancy
Player-Centric
Add Necromancy to the Ring of Kinship + Classes.
Add ectoplasm, which you would receive from a small Ritual site added to the starting room.
The Ritual site would include one candle, one glyph spot, a platform and a pedestal.
Candles and Ink would be purchased from the Smuggler.
Add necromantic runes, which you would craft through the usual Runecrafting means while using impure essence.
Impure essence would be created by performing a ritual on normal essence.
Add 11 armour and weapon tiers associated with Necromancy.
Crafting relevant armour would require ensouled cloth, ensouled thread and necromantic runes.
Smithing relevant weapons would require ensouled bars and necromantic runes.
10 different tiers of ensouled cloth and bars would be created by performing a ritual on regular cloths and bars and threads.
Tier 11 armour should drop from bosses.
The idea is that Rituals should be a greatly simplified version of their overworld counterparts, though would likely take less time. Like in a normal ritual, the outputs will be categorized as Lesser, Normal and Powerful materials..
Adjust the bind system to allow for Necromancy (this would only be necessary if we do not convert the bind system into a bank).
Daemonheim-Centric
Adds Forgotten Necromancer mobs to all floors while removing existing Necromancers.
Update the Necrolord boss to use Necromancy.
Update mobs to take players Necromancy level into account - this would likely be done as part of the wider mob and boss rebalancing task.
Invention:
Add Invention related doors.
Adding Invention as an entire skill to Dungeoneering is currently considered beyond the scope of what is possible, given all the other changes that we want to focus on first.
Archaeology
Add Archaeology related doors.
Adding Archaeology as an entire skill to Dungeoneering is currently considered beyond the scope of what is possible, given all the other changes that we want to focus on first.
Speedrunner Support
We will add dedicated Titles that will be acquired by completing floors in a certain time limit, as well as dedicated Ultimate tier titles for unlocking all titles:
We have a few early ideas for Titles, but wanted to hear your thoughts on what would make the most sense - what do you think the titles should be for following achievements?
Complete Frozen floor in timelimit
Complete Abandoned 1 floor in timelimit
Complete Furnished floor in timelimit
Complete Abandoned 2 floor in timelimit
Complete Occult floor in timelimit
Complete Warped floor in timelimit
Ultimate Tier Titles (Bronze, Silver, Gold) for completing all floors in timelimit
These will come in Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
We will add Quickchat support.
What Dungeoneering statistics would be most important for you to show off with Quickchat?
We will add floor time High Scores.
At a minimum this would be an in-game noticeboard, but ideally these would be displayed on a webpage - that is something we're investigating.
Miscellaneous "Nice-to-Haves"
The notes in this category have been earmarked as a nice-to-have. If we need to spend more time focusing on ensuring other aspects work, then these nice-to-haves will be deprioritized and may not be implemented. Hearing how you feel about these things is important, so do let us know if you agree or disagree with anything being listed as a nice-to-have.
Improve tutorialisation
The Smuggler should provide more information.
We should add Guide book items.
We should add UI popup tutorials.
Review Interfaces and update these where needed
Are there particular interfaces you find useful or that you struggle with? Any that are particularly outdated?
Rework other Ring of Kinship classes (melee/magic/ranged).
Add Overload potion creation
Remove the "Shared XP" option.
We have found that very few players actually use this system, and it adds complexity to what is already one of the more difficult to onboard skills.
Do you agree with this assessment? Have you found that you use shared XP frequently?
Remove the "Complexity 2-5" options when forming a party, and rename this function to provide either "low" or "high" complexity.
We have found that very few players choose options 2-5, creating a level of bloat that is unnecessary.
Do you agree with this assessment? Have you found that you use complexities 2-5 frequently?
Update the models for Bats, Skeletons and Zombies to their more modern versions.
Guide mode changes
Move the guide mode to the starting a dungeon interface.
Reduce the XP penalty of guide mode
Improve the readability of the critical path (i.e. make it easier to identify where to go)
Remove the Guide mode penalty and the always on toggle.
Consider removing Guide mode entirely.
How do you currently use Guide mode? Should it be kept or potentially improved with the above?
Add lootbeams and new mini-map icons (instead of just the red dots) for Meilyr recipe drops.
Rewards
Reward Shop & Reward Trader Shop (this task is currently earmarked as a nice-to-have depending on what is manageable).
Combine the Elite Dungeons Reward Shop with the Rewards Trader shop. The combined shop would mean that there is a single place to spend your tokens. This would also mean removing access to the Elite Dungeon Reward Shop from anywhere other than the Rewards Trader, which would also reduce world clutter.
Update items bought from the Reward Shop so that they come with a 100% charge from the start, instead of their current 20%.
We also want to look into the Rewards available to purchase with Tokens. We do have to be mindful here that some of the existing rewards may be outdated, while any new shop additions could be acquired instantly by players who have built any overabundance of Tokens over the past if the items in it are priced too low.
Referring briefly to our design philosophies in mind: Skills shouldn't be something you necessarily "complete", but rather something that you return to for as long as you personally want to and where you feel your engagement is appropriately rewarded at every stage of the journey. With that in mind, we want to add a repeatable consumable reward that would speak to just that continuous play-cycle delivering an appropriate and ongoing reward.
We won't yet detail our own ideas for what that might be, as we're keen to hear what you think would be a great repeatable reward to have. Make sure to let us know!
Aside from the above consumable reward, we want to add a variety of new rewards; including Necromancy variants of existing rewards, as well as a new companion pet, cosmetic overrides, and functional unlocks.
That's it for now! What do you think? Head on over to the official threads on Discord and Reddit and get involved in the conversation!