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Brighter Shores

Runescape co-creator Andrew Gower approached us for PR services for his company's new MMO. We worked with Fen Research from pre-announcement to Early Access launch, crafting appealing video content and undertaking a multi-phase PR project, leading to substantial coverage across the games media and beyond.

Project Details

Client:
FEN RESEARCH

Project Type:
MULTI-PHASE

Services Provided:
MEDIA RELATIONS
VIDEO PRODUCTION

Key Achievements:
100+ ITEMS OF COVERAGE
3+ MILLION IMPRESSIONS
10K STEAM REVIEWS

Making a big media splash for Runescape creator's new MMORPG.

Andrew Gower had spent much of the past decade out of the public eye when he approached us in early 2024 with word of his new company’s debut project: a spiritual successor to Runescape, the seminal MMORPG he co-created at Jagex in 2001. Brighter Shores was to take some of his previous title’s core elements and reinvent them in a new, streamlined formula, with a Steam Early Access release planned for the end of the year.

With the team at Fen Research hard at work on development, Andrew and co needed a reliable agency to take ownership of the game’s entire PR cycle from announcement to release. This is where GIYA stepped in.

We devised a three-phase campaign strategy for Brighter Shores – beginning with an announcement campaign, running through an exclusive beta phase, and finally into Early Access launch. Given Andrew’s association with Runescape, this presented both an opportunity and a challenge: we knew that this would be a game that the media would take an interest in, but we needed to be careful to ensure expectations were managed that this was not a new game from Jagex itself and avoid implying any direct association with Jagex or Runescape.

Because of the popularity of Runescape, we set our sights higher than we might for the announcement of a typical indie game, identifying targets at major outlets in the gaming world and beyond. We worked closely with Andrew to establish key messaging points to ensure that Brighter Shores’ USPs were clearly communicated to the media, in a way that established exactly what the game is and isn’t.

“Brighter Shores is a Runescape time-machine, and I’m hooked.”

To support the campaign, we worked closely with Fen Research to develop high-quality video content including a trailer and a tutorial video for the game’s beta. We invited select media figures to go hands-on with the beta before its public release, presenting the opportunity for in-depth hands-on previews to accompany the release date announcement. We even span up a campaign phase centered around Fen Research’s decision to delay the game’s launch by 24 hours in order to avoid clashing with the US Presidential Election!

As the game approached release, we managed review code requests, fielding hundreds of emails from journalists and content creators large and small (as well as fending off a fair number of key scammers!). We ensured the right media had access to the game early, while also working to avoid the risk of leaks and embargo breaks to maximise impact on launch day.

Ultimately, across three campaign phases, we were able to achieve upwards of 100 items of coverage – including multiple stories in some of the world’s biggest gaming outlets such as Polygon, Kotaku, PC Gamer, GamesRadar+, Rock Paper Shotgun and Eurogamer. This resulted in an estimated total of more than three million people viewing Brighter Shores content placed by GIYA.

Within two months of its release, Brighter Shores had amassed almost 10,000 user reviews on Steam and established a substantial community of players. Fen Research are currently supporting the game through Early Access and making refinements to the game based on community feedback following a successful initial launch.