Old School Runescape private server development is paused 'indefinitely' as Jagex says it has more important things to work on

I hope you weren't too excited about the prospect of private servers for Old School Runescape, because Jagex has announced that Project Zanaris—the OSRS "community servers" initiative announced in 2024—has been paused "indefinitely." And it sure doesn't sound like it'll be restarted, as developers previously working on the project "have been redistributed across Jagex or directly moved to Old School to help with ongoing improvements and exciting new initiatives."

"After careful consideration, we've decided to pause work on Zanaris indefinitely," Jagex announced today. "We're committed to delivering the best possible Old School RuneScape experience. With a renewed focus and continued from our incredible team, we're excited to keep making OSRS even better for everyone.

"We understand that feelings around the project were mixed, and many of the concerns raised were fair. The truth is, there are other areas of the core Old School experience that deserve more attention right now. While Zanaris was ambitious and innovative, it wouldn't have met expectations until much later in development. Rather than stretch our focus, we want to prioritise the things that matter most to you today."

While community servers aren't going to happen, at least not anytime soon, Jagex said the work done on Zanaris prior to the pause will "directly benefit" OSRS in the future in a number of ways. As written in its announcement post:

• Faster, More Creative Events & Content Ideas: The Zanaris team had lots of new gameplay ideas and incredible concepts for events and features. Rather than shelving these, we’ll explore how we can introduce some of these innovations through carefully curated temporary worlds. This means we can give you fresh experiences without impacting the OSRS core you love.
• Improved Server Infrastructure: We’ll be using the cloud server technology developed for Zanaris to enhance our existing game worlds. This means greater reliability during peak periods.
• Wider Region : We're exploring options to bring an improved service to underserved regions outside our core world locations (UK, US, , Australia).
• More Engaging Customisation: Zanaris brought us many customisation options that can now be introduced to main OSRS worlds or special event servers. These improvements will allow us to create more exciting time limited events and experimental content for you to enjoy.
• Strengthening the Roap: of the Zanaris team will be actively contributing to key initiatives on the OSRS roap, helping to enhance major content and the game's long-term development.

Jagex also said that while Zanaris is paused, it's still pursuing the underlying idea behind it—"to empower you to explore unique, experimental content"—through expanded Community Events.

"These would be special, time limited events similar to how DMM [Dean Mode] and Leagues operate to safely explore and enjoy entirely new types of gameplay and concepts. This could even be a space where you can trial new content before it potentially makes its way into the main game via the usual polling system. You'll play a crucial role in these experiments as it's your that will help us shape the future of OSRS."

A Jagex spokesperson confirmed with PC Gamer that the pause of Zanaris is unrelated to the layoffs Jagex publicized today. OSRS senior community manager Ayiza also said on Reddit that the decision to stop development was made prior to the layoffs.