The first five days of Leagues have ended.
Equilibrium averaged 36,725 concurrent players for August 10–14 compared with 35,119 players during Catalyst's September 15–19 launch.
This puts Equilibrium 4.6% ahead on average for launch week.
The max player count recorded was 49,969 compared with 49,615 for Catalyst, which is a difference of only 0.7%.
The real story is not how many players showed up, but how well the total population held throughout each window of the day.
Equilibrium's higher rate of concurrency could reflect more unique players, longer playing sessions, or more alt accounts.
Equilibrium versus Catalyst
Equilibrium hit higher daily averages on all five days of launch week. Tuesday showed the largest difference of 7.1%. The other four days were between 3.5% and 4.4% higher.
| Day | 2026 | 2026 Avg | 2026 Max | 2025 | 2025 Avg | 2025 Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Aug 10 | 33,666 | 49,969 | Sep 15 | 32,524 | 49,615 |
| Tue | Aug 11 | 38,512 | 49,596 | Sep 16 | 35,953 | 47,263 |
| Wed | Aug 12 | 37,379 | 48,202 | Sep 17 | 36,046 | 46,648 |
| Thu | Aug 13 | 37,218 | 46,877 | Sep 18 | 35,642 | 45,543 |
| Fri | Aug 14 | 36,850 | 46,350 | Sep 19 | 35,430 | 44,465 |
Did Old School RuneScape dip?
Yes. OSRS did dip, but it was relatively small.
During the week preceding Leagues, OSRS averaged 103,368 concurrent players. During Leagues (August 10–14), OSRS averaged 102,101 players, a decline of 1,267 players, or 1.2%. Its max player count also declined by 1,956 players, from 139,790 to 137,834, or 1.4%.
The small decline suggests that some OSRS players moved over to RS3 solely to play Leagues. The fact that OSRS player counts did not fall further may be indicative of more OSRS players playing alt accounts.
The lift from the prior week
RS3 averaged 17,767 players from August 3–7, which was 9.6% higher than the July 1–7 average of 16,208. It averaged 36,725 players from August 10–14. Equilibrium added 18,958 concurrent players, a 106.7% week-over-week lift.
Catalyst's prior-week average was 19,345 players, which rose to 35,119 players during Leagues I, an 81.5% lift.
Equilibrium's larger lift percentage is likely due to RS3 having more depressed player counts this year.
Conclusion
Equilibrium is performing slightly ahead of Catalyst, but not dramatically better.
Its daily averages and daily max counts were higher, although the two events shared nearly identical peaks for the first week.
What helps Equilibrium is that we are seeing higher concurrent player counts throughout the day, which likely reflects longer player sessions.
Equilibrium is the first Leagues I have participated in, and I played for more than 30 hours starting on launch day. I enjoyed it, but there were far too many bugs for the build I selected.
This is an ongoing issue Jagex needs to resolve. Weak quality testing can hurt RS3 more than the event is helping it. Hopefully Jagex continues to learn from these issues. Maybe most players can overlook the problems and the bugs don't turn people away.