A lot of people around my age might read those words and be instantly thrown back to the days of dial-up internet, MSN Messenger and Napster.

But before you instinctively type the letters "a/s/l" on your keyboard, get this - for a lot of people, this is hardly the stuff of distant memories.

In 2025 RuneScape - the online game where players can go on quests with their friends which first launched way back in 2001 - saw an influx of players.

Its number of paid members grew to "well over a million" according to the company, an increase of 30% compared to the start of the year.

Many millions more play for free, and the firm saw a historic milestone in 2025 - with a whopping 240,000 logging in at the same time, the most simultaneous players in the game's 25-year history.

To put that into context, at the time of writing, only three games available on the online store Steam have more current players.