Old School RuneScape has become the top app in several countries within 24 hours of release

Old School RuneScape on mobile has become the top app in eight countries in its first 24 hours of release.

Clocking up over 1 million downloads, the mobile game hit the top spot in the US, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, and "key" Nordic countries, and reached the top ten in 15 countries overall. This sees 1 million new players on top of the million+ already playing the old school MMO when it soft launched on Android, taking RuneScape to its highest ever daily average user figure in five years.

Old School RuneScape is available for iOS devices running 10.0 or above, and Android 5.0 or above, and features adventures for solo play through to 100-player strong raids that promise to take the game "far beyond a purely nostalgic vanilla experience".

“After five years of successive growth since its PC launch in 2013, the arrival of Old School RuneScape on mobile is a hugely important milestone for Jagex in taking the RuneScape franchise multiformat," said Jagex CEO, Phil Mansell. "Making our living games available to more players on more devices was a priority for us as we set out the third age of Jagex as, over the years, our players have grown up and some, who were PC players, now have alternative format preferences that fit their changed lifestyles.

“Now we have delivered Old School RuneScape in its entirety on mobile and offering the game as a second screen experience. By providing gamers with a new way to access Old School RuneScape, we have welcomed millions of new and returning players into this amazing game. The arrival of Old School RuneScape on mobile, and our ongoing work to bring RuneScape to mobile, is testament to our investment in the continued growth for both titles and building our vision for living games.”

Jagex asserts that Old School RuneScape is the first mobile mainstream PC game to transfer its monthly membership offering to mobile, like other subscription-based mobile entertainment apps such as Netflix and Spotify.

“We believe there is a huge opportunity to bring a new business model to mobile with subscription-based gaming," Mansell added. "By capitalising on the popularity of the RuneScape franchise, and our players’ familiarity with monthly membership, we can be a standard-bearer for the adoption of subscription-based gaming in the mobile space and our RuneScape titles can lead that charge.”

The Runescape franchise has brought in almost a billion dollars since its launch in 2001.