The release of the latest chapter in the “RuneScape” franchise is quickly approaching with the September release of “Dragonwilds,” which will mark a turning point for the beloved PC franchise.

Currently available on Steam Early Access for PC players, the title is particularly notable because it will mark the first “RuneScape” game to come to console devices in the MMORPG’s 25-year history.

Since porting to new platforms has become much easier with Unreal Engine 5, which is what Jagex, the creator of “RuneScape,” is using to create the title, there are key aspects that the team has had to pay attention to when it comes to creating a game that will have a good “feel” on the Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series the PCs.

“Development has been easy, but there’s a lot of work we have to do on the UX, the user experience, because while we’ve been developing with the controller in mind, there’s an expectation from the console player around the experience on a controller,” said Jagex’s “RuneScape: Dragonwilds” creative director Rick Turek. Variety during an interview at Summer Game Fest last month. “I don’t think there’s a best-in-class survival game on a controller that’s really nailed it with these kinds of features.”

An example Turek gives is the Xbox-owned “Minecraft,” which is “pretty simple, in terms of its control features, and it doesn’t have a lot of overlapping systems because it’s pretty organic.” By comparison, the Jagex executive says that “RuneScape: Dragonwilds” is “a pretty interface-heavy game.”

“Which is really great for PC, but as soon as you start putting it on the controller, a lot of the work has been less about trying to port it to the console, because we have Unreal; it’s more about the user experience and how to make the controller feel great,” Turek said. “And ‘RuneScape,’ being traditionally PC, what that means if I’m a console player and I get the same experience.”

According to Jagex, more than one million early access copies of “RuneScape: Dragonwilds” had been sold as of June. That commitment comes as Jagex has been promoting its “strategy to expand ‘RuneScape’ to a broader ecosystem of always-on games and connected experiences, based on a renewed commitment to integrity and fair play,” including “reducing monetization mechanics.”

With this in mind, UK-based developer Jagex is balancing courting veteran “RuneScape” players as well as potential new fans with features like that feel-good control aspect and promises of cross-play abilities.

“My general assumption is that there are a lot of people who have played ‘RuneScape’ in one way or another, but are not yet playing the MMO,” said Jagex product director Robert Galassi-Fox. “So when we started, a lot of the time was talking to people in the early research to see how many people preferred to play on the [retro game controller] sticks. It’s not a small number of people. So it was very important for us to stick the landing and part of what we were doing even in Alpha was being quite specific, as Rick said, about getting a good feel for the controller first.”

Galassi-Fox added: “Our coming to PC made sense in terms of [Early Access] expression, but I’m more excited for this new audience and to see what some of the expectations are. “We want it to be equivalent, and the intention, and this hasn’t changed yet, is for there to be cross-play, so that people can play with each other.”