Jagex has announced it will remove the Treasure Hunter monetisation mechanic from RuneScape by January 19, 2026.
Last month, the British developer launched a community vote to “decide the future of RuneScape’s microtransactions”, which included removing the Treasure Hunter daily activity.
Over 120,000 members voted to get rid of the feature, surpassing the 100,000 vote threshold.
Introduced in 2014, Treasure Hunter enabled players to win prizes that granted XP boosts, gameplay-skipping items, and in-game gold.
Users could receive a limited number of keys for free, but extra keys were available for purchase as part of the game’s overall microstransaction offerings.
This feature will now be removed from the game, alongside 225 direct XP and skill-related items, as well as those that “disrupt core gameplay and the player economy, including purchasable sources of direct XP.”
Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy also noted on LinkedIn that “appointment-based game mechanics” and “daily login incentives” will also be taken out of the game.
“The removal of Treasure Hunter is just one part of a wider transformation across Jagex, which is seeing a renewed commitment to delivering deeper value, greater fairness and long-term improvements for players across all our games,” said Bellamy.
“We have all been delighted to see the passion and encouragement that the player vote represents for RuneScape, and over the next year, we will be delivering an Integrity Roadmap that tackles some of the game’s biggest friction points head-on, alongside one of our best content roadmaps in RuneScape history.”
Last month, we spoke to Bellamy for his vision for the studio after being appointed CEO earlier this year, as well as his stance on microtransactions.
“For RuneScape, adding back some of the integrity that maybe we lost over the last decade or so is more than monetisation; it’s visual integrity, it’s gameplay integrity, too,” he explained.
“These experiments really touch on the monetisation aspect, but there’s more than a year’s worth of work yet to be announced and yet to be done on strengthening integrity across visual gameplay and monetisation.”
