We love starting each new year with something large, and this year is no exception. Cue the Kalphite King and our first ever level 90 equipment!

Kalphite King

Since the dawn of time, the Kalphite Lair has been born and reborn, as each new queen ascends to rule over her beetly minions. In the sandy depths, way below the inhospitable Kharidian Desert, a new foe has emerged and it’s eager to spill your blood and feed its ravenous nest. This new kalphite has taken a different, far larger and brutal form, however, and even the queen herself isn’t capable of ruling over him. It can only be...the Kalphite King.

In this brand new, instanced boss fight, you’ll need to work cooperatively with a group of high level friends to avoid a quick and ungraceful death, including learning how to dodge the most damaging NPC attack ever! He'll have a large range of potential attacks, keeping even the most effective teams on their toes. The fight itself will be instanced, so there won’t be any issues of overcrowding or run-ins, as you'll be able to set rules to control who can join you for the fight.

If you are skilled enough to prevail, the potential loot from this chitinous menace will be huge. To start with, he'll drop a range of new, level 90 weaponry focused around dual-wielding melee users, with both main and off-hand maces, longswords and rapiers. All-new kalphite enemies will also drop the resources needed to repair this magnificent new equipment.

In this brand new Kalphite Hive, you’ll be able to fight through graphically reworked kalphites; perfect for kalphite Slayer assignments. We’re even overhauling their drop tables to make fighting them more profitable.

Hati Wolf and Friends

It’s winter again, and - as sure as the seasons themselves - the legendary wolves, Hati and Sköll, stalk the Fremennik forests and fjords once more.

Each wolf requires a group of experienced players to defeat, with Hati focused around combat skills, and Sköll having a rather interesting Firemaking alternative to traditional hack-and-slash techniques.

The brave adventurers who assist in their demise will receive a selection of wolf cosmetic gear (a brand new one, as well as all of the existing pieces) and an angry-wolf-sized chunk of bonus XP in Combat, Woodcutting and Agility.

Desert Area Tasks

The king isn’t the only desert content we're adding this month: we’re introducing the newest of our task sets, which covers all of the Kharidian Desert.

The task set incorporates 4 different levels of player skill, covering the traditional 'easy', 'medium', 'hard' and 'elite' categories, with elite requiring such levels as 91 Thieving 89 Crafting, to name a few. For those of you that haven’t tried a task set before... what have you been doing? Think of it like an awesome list of things to do, where you'll need to visit all four corners of the desert, collecting items, visiting hidden pockets of the game world and earning cool rewards while you do it.

Rewards are, as always, numerous, and along with a hefty chuck of XP, crafters, herblorists and miners will be particularly pleased with what we have planned. As always, the rewards will include a piece of upgradeable gear - an amulet, in this case. We're also including some new daily rewards, rerolls for the Dominion Tower and improvements to two of the older, more neglected desert weapons.

Demon Flash Mobs

The demons have entered an arms race! Unknown to many, demons don’t just follow the word of Zamorak – far from it. Demons are looking to strengthen the presence (and power) of their chosen god, and - in late January - you’ll be able to intervene...if you dare. These demons are summoning and empowering their most powerful generals to ravage the land; draining blood and harvesting souls for a mysterious cause. This has not gone unnoticed, and a Saradominist priest will need your help!

Similar to the goblin flash mobs from 2012 (only much, much tougher) you’ll be able to fight groups of NPCs that appear in pre-determined locations (like the Wilderness and other dangerous zones) throughout the world. For those brave enough, new rewards await! This time you’ll be able to kit yourself out with the latest in warrior-chic: the demon slayer armour. In addition to its generous stats - equivalent to dragon armour - they'll also grant you increased XP when fighting demons, and an increased dodge chance when fighting the demon general that spawns at the end of the flash mob.

Squeal of Fortune & Solomon's General Store

There's plenty of cool content on the way from Yelps and Solomon this January, too. To complement the soon-to-be-released God Statues Distraction & Diversion, we'll be releasing Construction training packs on the Squeal of Fortune, giving you a chance to score some handy materials for improving your POH. There's also two sets of awesome-looking kalphite armour overrides, so you can get in touch with your inner invertebrate.

There's loads more to come as well as these: weekend boosts to Summoning XP from lamps and bags of cash from Yelps, and abduction teleports and some wickedly demonic armour from Solomon. If you fancy treating yourself to a few spins on the Squeal of Fortune or something sweet-looking from Solomon's Store, January's the time!

Have fun!

Mod Mark

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What is a 'Behind the Scenes' article?

Behind the Scenes is a sneak peek at the planned game updates that we hope to launch in the coming month.

This, however, is only a plan; not a promise that a particular update will be released in a particular way or at a particular time. To get you the highest quality updates as quickly as possible, we usually keep on tweaking and testing right up until the moment before release, so sometimes things change or take a bit longer than expected. We aren't afraid to change our plan if necessary, as we will never launch an update before it is ready.