From Launch To Life Support: Brighter Shores Lost 97% Of Its Players

Brighter Shores launched with a lot of hype. The free-to-play MMORPG was Andrew Gower’s big return to the scene, years after he left Jagex and RuneScape behind. That pedigree alone was enough to get people talking. A cozy, professions-first game with light combat, colorful visuals, and the promise of capturing some of that RuneScape magic sounded like a dream. People love RuneScape — especially Old School RuneScape — so more of that, in a slightly modernized form, seemed like a welcome idea.

Early Access went live on November 6, 2024, and the curiosity was immediate. During that first weekend, SteamCharts recorded an all-time peak of just over 17,000 concurrent players, while SteamDB clocked it slightly higher at around 20,000. For a small indie MMO, those are impressive numbers. The first full month averaged out to just under 8,000 concurrents. That’s not bad at all for a new game built by a small studio. The opening days suggested Brighter Shores might carve out a decent-sized niche and slowly grow from there.

But then came the crash. By December 2024, the average had already plummeted to around 2,200 players. By January 2025, it slipped further to barely above 1,000. Each month after that saw the playerbase chip away more and more. Fast forward less than a year later, and the game is averaging around 250 concurrent players, with a 30-day peak of roughly 400. That is a staggering collapse — a 97% drop from the first month’s average to today. What looked like a promising start turned into a slow bleed that never stabilized.

The reviews tell a similar story. Overall, Brighter Shores sits at a “Mixed” 69% positive rating across more than 8,000 reviews. But look at recent reviews, and that number dips down to “Mixed” 55%. The takeaway is that players don’t outright hate Brighter Shores. They check it out, find it playable enough, but then just bounce off. There is no staying power. In MMO terms, that’s far worse than simply being bad, because it means the game struggles to give people a reason to log back in tomorrow.

So why did it fail to hold attention? Old School RuneScape provides the perfect contrast. In 2025, OSRS set a new all-time record of over 240,000 concurrent players. That is twenty years after the original RuneScape released, and yet the older game is somehow thriving while its spiritual successor is struggling to stay above water. The reason is simple: Old School RuneScape knows exactly what it is. It is grindy, it is nostalgic, and it leans into those qualities without apology. People log in knowing exactly what to expect.

Brighter Shores, on the other hand, felt unsure of itself. Hardcore MMO players found it far too shallow, with combat that barely mattered and professions that lacked meaningful depth. Casual players, who might have enjoyed a low-stress MMO, ran into awkward UI choices and progression loops that felt confusing or unrewarding. Instead of finding a balance, Brighter Shores seemed to appeal to neither side. The result was a game that looked fine, played fine, but never gave anyone that addictive itch that makes an MMO stick.

It is not like the developers ignored feedback. Fen Research pushed out patches that improved quality of life, squashed bugs, and even reworked core systems. One notable example was when they replaced the Gatherer profession entirely with the Botanist, showing they were willing to overhaul big chunks of the game to make it stronger. That level of responsiveness is admirable, but it also highlighted how unfinished the foundation was at launch. Instead of building new content on top of solid systems, the team was still tinkering with the basics. That is not how you win back lapsed players or convince newcomers to jump in.

By the middle of 2025, the hype was gone. Articles stopped covering Brighter Shores, streams and videos dried up, and community chatter slowed to a trickle. The few players who stuck around were loyal, but they were not generating the kind of buzz a living MMO needs to thrive. It is not dead — the servers are still on, patches still roll out — but Brighter Shores has entered maintenance mode. A couple hundred people still play, but it is hard to call that a healthy or growing online world.

The story is a steep and decisive fall: from more than 17,000 concurrent players on day one to only a few hundred less than a year later. That kind of decline is not just disappointing; it is definitive. The game launched with promise but without a clear identity, and the lack of a compelling gameplay loop meant the numbers cratered.

If Brighter Shores wants to redeem itself, it would need more than incremental patches. It would need to pull off a Final Fantasy XIV-style reinvention, a full “A Realm Reborn” overhaul that gives the game a new identity and a reason for people to return. Right now, it does not need polish on existing systems — it needs a bold new hook, something that compels players to log in again tomorrow. Until that happens, Brighter Shores will remain what it is today: a project that started with hype, only to end up on life support before its first anniversary.