OSRS 2026 Roadmap Guide: How to Prepare for OSRS Updates

Onur Author

Created - 02.02.2026 Updated - 02.02.2026

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Old School RuneScape is heading into one of its biggest years ever. With a brand-new raid, Leagues 6, major Sailing expansions, powerful bosses, and system reworks all planned for 2026, the game is set to change in a massive way.

In this guide, we break down every confirmed update on the OSRS roadmap and explain exactly how players can prepare, from levelling priorities to smart item investments.

Major OSRS Updates Planned for 2026

There are a bunch of exciting updates that are going to come out this year. If you haven’t seen the list yet, here it is:

• The Fractured Archive (New Raid)
• Leagues 6
• The Blood Moon Rises (New grandmaster quest)
• Sailing updates
• New P2P solo boss
• New F2P starter boss
• Summer Sweeup Up 2
• New community bingo events

How the Updates Will Affect Players

The updates above will have a huge impact on the player base. First and foremost, with the current lineup of updates, we can safely expect the player count to rise to its limits. Having Leagues, then a grandmaster quest alongside a solo boss encounter, followed up by a raid, will get a lot of players interested and excited to play OSRS. So we can safely expect to have players returning to the game to play these updates.

Players returning to the game and these new PvM updates will have a great effect on item prices related to PvM. As we get closer to these updates, there will be blog posts and speculations about which items will be useful in these encounters and which items will not. Which then in turn crashes the items that are useless in these contexts and skyrockets the useful items. We will talk about what items will rise in price under each update section in this guide.

If you want to be fully prepared, however, you should start hoarding cash, If you’re looking to stack GP quickly, you can check out our OSRS Gold Store for a safe and fast boost.

How to Prepare For OSRS 2026 Updates

League 6 Demonic Pacts

Leagues are coming once again this year, and it will be crazier than ever with an updated and improved combat relic system. It will surely be the greatest installation of this game mode yet. Let’s take a look at what we know so far and what changed.

Different Starting Location

In this year's League, the starting area will not be Misthalin, but someplace else that we do not know yet. The blog mentions a completely new starting area, “Yama’s Lair”, where the players are going to complete their tutorial, but we highly doubt that a starting area specifically designed for Leagues will be relevant, so we fully expect to unlock a region after the tutorial for free. If we were to guess, it would be the newly finished Varlamore area, which would be perfect since it is new and houses content that addresses every skill in the game.

Echo Bosses with New Rewards

Echo bosses will be making a return, which is great, but Jagex also mentioned some of the rewards will be different, so we wouldn’t recommend making a region plan just yet.

Combat Masteries Return

The combat masteries are returning with some twists. This League's theme is all about Yama, and Yama has pacts that you can do for rewards. So maybe we will have to get tasks from Yama and complete them in the over-world to unlock a lot more combat amsteries compared to the previous League.

Sailing Not Included

Sadly, Sailing will not be a part of the Legues as they probably haven’t figured out how to meaningfully add it into the game mode.

Rewards

With each League comes cosmetic rewards that we can buy and trade in the main game, and this year's cosmetic rewards are looking great! They are all demonic-themed in accordance with the style of this year's Leagues, and they include:

• A banner
• New demonic home teleport animation
• Demonic throne override
• Demonic thralls override
• Weapon ornament kits for: Trident of the Seas, Trident of the Swamp, Iban’s Staff, Soul Reaper Axe (Staff kits actually change the visuals of the spells they cast.)
• Oathplate Slayer Helmet
• Demon Butler Override
• Demon Skin Colour

How to Prepare

We would highly recommend joining the Leagues Discord as it is a great place for information regarding Leagues. Keep an eye out for the updates, and just like every year, we will do full relic breakdowns and give you the best paths you can take for the builds you want to do, so feel free to keep an eye out for our Runescape Blog. You can also check out relics and tasks from previous years' Leagues, as many of the tasks and relics will be the same or similar.

Summer Sweep Up 2

Last year's summer sweep-up brought along expansions to the Elemental Weaknesses, changes to NPC defences, massive improvements to TOA, and Slayer rewards. So this year, we can expect a similar level of impact on the game.

Grandmaster Quest: Blood Moon Rises & New Solo Boss

At long last, we will be getting a finale for the Vampyre quest line in OSRS. This quest will be a grandmaster quest and will require the completion of Sins of the Father and A Night at the Theatre quests, alongside requiring some skills at 70+, with a recommended combat level of 110+. So if you don’t have all your skills at 70 or higher, it is highly recommended that you level them up.

Flail Upgrade

With this new quest, we will, of course, get our final upgrade to our flail, which is the only weapon that damages Vampyres. Which will have better stats with an effect that gives %25 buff to damage and accuracy against Vampyres.

New Spec Weapon

At the end of the quest, we will receive a new 2-handed spec weapon, and what is cool about this weapon is that it’s sepcial attack always hits its max hit if the target's hitpoints are lower than the max hit, making it a reliable enemy finisher. This weapon is effective against vampyres.

Bloodwood Trees

These trees will be mid to high tier tree requires Woodcutting in the 70s. They are designed to provide a valuable resource rather than good experience rates. Without any tick manipulation, it is said to have a 50-60k experience rate per hour; with tick manipulation, it can rise up to 80-90k experience per hour.

This will also be a completely different Woodcutting method, more similar to how players can make an oathplate.

Seeker Arrows

This arrow is very interesting; instead of being a straight max hit upgrade to bows, it provides a +2 minimum hit, meaning your minimum hit will be 3 rather than 1. This will allow you to land more hits more consistently. This arrow can be crafted using the new Woodcutting method and new PvM creaturesin the Vampyrium.

New Hunter Method - Stymphikes

This new Hunter method has two steps:

• Catching creatures to use as bait, which requires level 76 Hunter.
• Using the bait alongside a box trap, which requires level 82 Hunter.

The box trap phase is designed as a relaxing way to train hunter that offers consistent experience without paying much attention to the game, which is what we like to see. The experience rates will be similar to red chinchompas.

New Fishing Method - Leechfins

This method will not be a fully AFK one, but it also won’t be an overly click-intensive one either. It will require a Fishing level in the 70’s and will yield 60K Fishing experience per hour. These leeches are designed to be useful in specific encounters.

You can use these leeches to create a sandwich, this food:

• Heals you for 16.
• Increases your next attack delay to 2 ticks.
• Sets your next eat delay to 9 ticks.
• Causes your next successful melee hit to heal and an additional 16 health.

You can create this food with:

• Leechfin
• Bread
• Fine Fish Offcuts

New Slayer Creature - Venator

This new creature requires level 74 Slayer to kill and is an alternative to regular Vampyre Slayer tasks. They are a high-intensity encounter in a single combat area. The creature is more rewarding as it drops blood shards at a much higher rate.

New Boss - Maggot King

This is a new repeatable boss encounter that all players can do after completing the quest. Two unique rewards can be obtained from this boss:

• The Crimson Bludgeon: This bludgeon is a 1 handed 4-tick melee weapon that is designed to sit behind the inquisitor's mace. It has a special attack that rolls 4 accuracy rolls against the target, and for each successful roll, it deals more damage. This weapon requires level 60 Attack and 85 Strength to use.
• The Necklace of Pursuit: This is a direct upgrade to the necklace of anguish. It provides +8 Ranged strength, +22 Ranged accuracy, and +3 Prayer bonus. It is made by combining an alpha venator tooth from the boss with an anguish requiring level 84 Crafting.

How to Prepare

There is a lot to unpack here, but in a nutshell, here is how you prepare for this update:

• Level up all your skills to 70+ to be able to engage in all the new content.
• Make sure your combat level is high.
• Finish the already existing vampyre storyline.
• Have decent melee gear. Inquisitor's set might be the most useful here as the boss drops a crush weapon, but this is just a speculation.
• Don’t stock up on or invest in blood shards, as they are surely going to hit rock bottom after this update.
• Do demonic gorilla slayer tasks and get at least one necklace of anguish. The zenyte prices will hit an all-time high pretty soon, as all three pieces of zenyte jewellery will have a direct upgrade.

Community Bingo event

If you have liked the previous years' Grid Master event, you will love this one, as Jagex is giving the players the ability to create their own bingo board and play it with any of their friends. We do not know any details yet, so keep an eye out for any updates.

New Raid: The Fractured Archive

The 4th raid of OSRS is coming this Winter. Although they didn’t reveal much we know:

• This raid will be similar in difficulty to TOB, and will be hard to solo.
• It can be done in parties of 2-8 players.
• It requires the completion of While Guthix Sleeps.
• No puzzle rooms, just bosses.

How to Prepare & What to Expect

At this point, everything here will be speculative aside from completing While Gtuhix Sleeps quest and having maxed stats. To prepare for this raid, we obviously need powerful PvM gear, but which styles of combat and items will be best, and what will be the rewards? The answer of these two questions will determine the item prices, so let’s speculate based on what we know.

In terms of gear requirements, we can fully expect the raid to require all 3 styles of combat, as all raids do. From the teased boss picture, the boss seems to be an undead, so any gear like a Salve Amulet is a must-have, and since it has roots growing out if it with the teased Raid concept arats being very winey, and jungly, we can also speculate some fire elemental weakness going on, so owning a harmonised nightmare staff might be a smart idea.

The following is pure speculation, not based on the blog post: It might also be a good idea to get tonalztics of Ralos, full justicar armour set and a gharazi rapier, as these items have never received a content update related to their use. Which also brings us to our next topic: what will be the reward?

We already have great gear and weapons for each combat style from other raids, so what can they possibly reward us with? Well, we can expect a armor set that gives stab bonus, as it currently doesn’t exist. We can also expect a single-handed weapon as a mega rare, as all previous mega rares are two-handed weapons. The most suitable style for such an item would be ranged, as it currently lacks variety in its progression path the most. This one is also purely my opinion as the writer of this blog, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they have added a new best-in-slot defensive shield that can be created by combining with an Elysian spirit shield, as every raid released a shield before this one.

Sailing Expansion

Sailing is in its early stages currently, and it requires plenty of love before it becomes a full-fledged skill. Here is what they plan to do with Sailing this year:

• Boat combat rework, as requested by many players. With this, the player gear will matter much more, and cannons will act as upgraded thralls.
• Granite and steel cannonballs will be changed to dwarven cannonballs and will not work with ship cannons. Sailing cannonballs will have their own ammo mould, which can produce 8 cannonballs per bar. Other sources of cannonballs, such as monster drops, will be increased as well.
• Afk way to do ship combat will be released, where your crew will attack anything they can attack.
• A new kraken that drops a dragon cannon barrel will be added.
• A new quest called “The Red Reef”.
• A newly added island, designed by a player.
• A new Barracuda Trial.
• Sea expansion in the Eastern, Untamed, and Forgotten oceans.

How to Prepare

For now, if you are not engaging in any ship combat activity, sell off your cannonballs as they will become much cheaper. Aside from this, there is not much to say other than to have high stats to complete any activity that can come with a new island.

If you need any OSRS Service, you can check out our OSRS Services page to hire one of our specialists to get anything you want in the game.

What Not to Do Before 2026 Updates Go Live

Do not over-invest in any item, especially while a lot of speculations are going on, and if youare heavily invested in one, make sure to sell when it rises a lot in value before the contents release, as investors tend to skyrocket an item's price before an update and then they crush it to the ground.

FAQs

Are OSRS 2026 updates confirmed or subject to change?

They are confirmed, but the contents might change slightly, like item effects and bonuses.

How should casual players prepare for 2026 updates?

They should level up their skills to at least 70, and try to max their combat level. They should also make as much money as possible the be ready for new items.

Should I stockpile items before updates?

Yes and no, currently there is more speculation than facts, so any investment you make can backfire on you or work greatly in your favour. Food and potions are always needed, so you can stockpile them safely, but for PvM items, do so if you trust your guess.

How do OSRS updates affect Ironman accounts?

They will have a bunch of new content that they will be able to do, and new ways to train their skills. However, they should stockpile on resources as there are 2 massive PvM updates this year.