AI-Built RuneScape Clone Elderwood Shut Down by Jagex

A browser-based clone of Old School RuneScape built by an OpenAI employee using generative AI tools has been taken offline after Jagex issued a legal notice to its creator. The game, called Elderwood, existed for only a matter of days before community outrage and developer action combined to shut it down.

What Was Elderwood?

According to Eurogamer, Elderwood was created by OpenAI employee Rohan Varma, who used GPT-4o to construct a multiplayer browser game that closely mirrored the look and feel of Old School RuneScape. A promotional video posted to X, itself generated with AI tools, showed a character spawning outside Lumbridge castle carrying bread, coins, and basic tools before going on to fight giant rats, chop trees, and equip steel armor. Beyond a handful of visual inconsistencies, the resemblance to Old School RuneScape was hard to miss. The game later expanded to include recognizable locations from the original, including Varrock and Falador.

The Community Reacts

Once posts about Elderwood reached the r/2007scape subreddit, the response from the Old School RuneScape fanbase was immediate and blunt. Eurogamer reported several pointed reactions from the thread. User RangeCreed wrote, “What in the vibe coded shit is this. They even straight up ripped art assets shameless.” Another user, Lekamil, took aim at the communication style of the posts promoting the project, while X user Toppo offered a two-word review: “tl;dr garbage.” The spike in attention brought more players to the game, which Varma responded to by adding content moderation and expanding the map. The goodwill did not follow.

The frustration runs deeper than a single copycat project. As GamesRadar noted, the RuneScape player base has been dealing with AI-powered bots for years, and the arrival of a generative AI clone of the game itself added another layer of aggravation to an already sensitive subject.

Jagex Steps In and Elderwood Goes Dark

Jagex moved quickly. A legal notice prompted Varma to pull the game offline entirely. In its place, a farewell message appeared on the Elderwood site that Eurogamer quoted in full, describing the project as a “browser-based multiplayer adventure inspired by RuneScape” that had grown into a “shared world of exploration, skilling, quests, trading and duels.” The message thanked players for their time and announced that high scores would remain available as a record of what participants had accomplished.

That send-off did not land well either. GamesRadar highlighted community suspicion that the farewell message was itself written by AI, and the most upvoted reply in the subreddit thread came from user Big_Necessary_5002, who asked: “Why [are] they acting as if they had some glorious adventure and legacy to leave behind lol.” For a project that lasted only a few days and was built on someone else’s intellectual property, the grandiose exit note struck many players as tone-deaf at best.

Sources: Eurogamer, GamesRadar