Jagex has announced a fourth MMO in the RuneScape series.

After revealing the new game at RuneFest in Birmingham over the weekend, the developer also announced a new RuneScape animated adaptation, made in partnership with YouTuber Charlie “MoistCr1TiKaL” White, is also on the way.

You can see the reveal teaser below:

According to the studio’s own blurb, the game will “bring the world of Gielinor to life in Unreal Engine, combining the depth, freedom and community-led spirit that have defined RuneScape for 25 years with the technology and game design possibilities of today”.

The new MMO, currently going by the working title RS4, is still in early development, with Jagex saying it’s at least a few years from release and has yet to settle on an official name.

A numbered sequel might seem like the obvious name given RuneScape’s history. The game was rebranded RuneScape 2 in 2004 and RuneScape 3 in 2013 before Jagex abandoned numbering altogether, folding everything back into a single live service. These days, the RuneScape stable also includes Old School RuneScape and spin-off RuneScape: Dragonwilds, both still active and separate from whatever RS4 eventually becomes.

Jagex hasn’t committed to calling the new game RuneScape 4, numbered or otherwise.

In a blog post, Jagex explained why it had announced RS4 this far ahead of launch, revealing engine and tooling work from Dragonwilds gave the team something to build on, and the studio wanted to extend the same collaborative, community-driven development it’s used on RuneScape and Old School.

None of that comes at the expense of the existing games, Jagex said, each of which keeps its own team and its own ongoing investment.

“We’ll be designing RS4 to sit alongside them as an additional way to experience RuneScape and the world of Gielinor,” Jagex said, adding that “the ambition isn’t to replace the RuneScape games you love. It’s to make the RuneScape universe bigger”.

The new MMO will be set in Gielinor’s Sixth Age, beginning in Ashenfall, a region first introduced in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, located to the north-east of the main map.

According to Jagex, RS4 picks up years after Dragonwilds’ story and the defeat of the Dragon Queen Kuldra, though the studio says Ashenfall is “only the beginning,” with plans to expand “far beyond” it over time into both familiar and new areas of Gielinor.

As for the RuneScape animated adaptation? That’s in the works with Charlie White (MoistCr1TiKaL) and LA production company Lyrical Media, aiming to bring “the world, characters and stories of Gielinor to life”. It expects to draw from 25 years of history and more than 300 million player accounts created since RuneScape first launched.

A clone of Old School RuneScape briefly appeared on the internet this week, before – stoked the ire of the RuneScape community – it was quickly shut down.