Raids 4 finally has a date. The Fractured Archive opens on Tuesday, October 20th, 2026, and it's being billed as the toughest raid Old School RuneScape has ever had.

Jagex is keeping the bosses and mechanics under wraps until launch, but they've now explained how the raid's systems work: grouping, scaling, wipes, resupplies, the boss path choices and the full loot table. This guide covers all of it so you can spend launch day learning fights instead of working out the lobby.

What Is the Fractured Archive?

The Fractured Archive is Old School's fourth raid, after the Chambers of Xeric, the Theatre of Blood and the Tombs of Amascut. It's a vault built by Guthix's followers to hold his most valuable (and most dangerous) artefacts, and it sits deep below Lumbridge, near the Ancient Guthixian Temple at the bottom of the Chasm of Tears.

Story-wise, it follows straight on from While Guthix Sleeps. Lucien's tampering with the Stone of Jas cracked open an entrance that had been sealed for thousands of years. Now several gods have sent agents to loot the place, and it's up to you and the Alliance you assembled during the quest to stop them.

In terms of gameplay, think Theatre of Blood more than Chambers of Xeric. This is a combat-focused bossing raid with very little skilling or puzzle-solving.

At a glance:

  • Release date: October 20th, 2026
  • Also called: Raids 4, TFA
  • Requirement: Completion of While Guthix Sleeps (members only)
  • Team size: 2-8 players (recommended 3-5)
  • Encounters: 8 bosses in total, 5 per run
  • Practice Mode: Coming after launch, not on release day

Requirements & Getting There

The only hard requirement is While Guthix Sleeps. Once it's done, a messenger will meet you when you log in and hand you a note pointing you to the raid.

To get there, head back to the area where Lucien made his move during the quest. The entrance is on a cliff face close to the entrance of the Ancient Guthixian Temple.

In practice, that's the spot where a Guthixian temple teleport scroll drops you, at the bottom of the ladders. If you've hunted Tormented Demons, you already know the area. The raid entrance is a small cave opening just to the side of where you land, so a stack of those scrolls is the fastest way in until you have something better.

After that, travel gets much easier. One of the raid's rewards is the Archivist's Folio, an untradeable teleport item that takes you straight back to the Archive. It works a lot like the Xeric's talisman does for the Chambers. You charge it with Ascension shards, and Jagex says the rate is very generous.

What about restricted accounts? Jagex had planned to make the raid accessible to restricted builds that can't complete While Guthix Sleeps, by revisiting some of the older quests on its unlock path rather than removing the requirement. Those changes won't be ready for launch, and there's no confirmed date for them yet.

Still missing the quest? While Guthix Sleeps is a long Grandmaster quest, and it gives the Fractured Archive the highest entry requirement of any raid in the game. Our OSRS questing services can get it, and the quests before it, done by hand before October 20th.

The Lobby: Grouping, Spectating & Ascension Rocks

The area in front of the entrance has been turned into a staging base by the Alliance. Here's what you'll find:

  • East side: bank chest, grouping board and Record Keeper. The grouping board works much like the party boards at ToA and ToB. You create a party and accept applicants. One new option is the eye icon at the top, which lets you allow or block spectators.
  • West side: the strategy board and General Montoya. Montoya explains the Alliance's plan and where you fit in. At the strategy board you can search for specific or recent raiding parties and spectate their runs live if they've left spectating switched on. That's a big step up from ToB, where you mostly got dropped into whichever team the game picked. It's a great way to pick up strategies before you try a room yourself.
  • South-west: Ascension rocks. A new low-intensity activity for when you're waiting on a teammate, and a lot more useful than the usual lobby habit of running off to mine the nearest shooting star. Mining the rocks slowly gives you Ascension shards. Roots wrapped around the rocks retreat and resurface over time, so you have to keep an eye on them. Watch out for sprites too, which turn into bonus shards when you click them.

Team Size & Scaling

The Fractured Archive scales from 2 to 8 players, and Jagex recommends 3 to 5. Their reasoning is that most rooms give different players different jobs. With too few players, you'll be juggling too many tasks. With too many, your role starts to feel less important.

  • Duo: Hard, but very doable once you know the fights. Jagex's description sounds a lot like ToB duos: not what you want for your first clears, but realistic once you've got some kills under your belt.
  • Solo: Possible but punishing. Solo runs are scaled as 2 players (ToB scales a solo as 3). Even so, Jagex compares it to a ToB solo rather than a CoX solo. Keep in mind that a CoX solo is already harder than the Corrupted Gauntlet for most players, so if you were planning to learn this raid alone, don't.

Jagex has been clear that the raid is designed as group content. Fully scaling encounters down to one player tends to water down any mechanic that needs teamwork, and they wanted to avoid fights where one person does the important work while everyone else just hits the boss. That's a direct response to the Tombs of Amascut, where the raid's solo-friendly design means many players find going alone just as good as going in a team.

How to Find a Raid Team

Needing a group puts a lot of people off, but it's easier than it looks:

  • The raid's own world. Expect a dedicated world for the Fractured Archive, just like the other raids.
  • PvM Discords. Learner and teaching Discords for ToB will almost certainly add Raids 4 channels at launch.
  • Clans. You don't need a hardcore PvM clan. Almost any active social clan will have members learning the raid in the first few weeks.

Learning a raid with a team, slowly getting better at each room until you can fly through it, is some of the most rewarding content in Old School. It's worth giving it a shot, even if group PvM isn't something you normally do.

Deaths, Wipes & the New Spectate System

At launch, a team wipe ends the raid. It works like the Theatre of Blood: everyone is removed and sent back to the lobby, and you'll find your items in a normal gravestone nearby (not a separate death storage). Every potion and piece of food you used on the way is gone, so wipes will be expensive. Factor that into your budget for learning the raid.

Jagex knows this is the scary part. Their reasoning is that a full wipe should mean something, and that the upcoming Practice Mode gives players a better way to learn safely. They do have a backup plan ready if the strict rules turn out to be too punishing. It would allow continuing after a wipe, but with heavy penalties to unique chances and supplies.

Dying is also a lot less boring this time. Instead of waiting around as a ghost, dead players can click the HP/party orbs to watch a teammate's point of view. You can follow their character, see their inventory, and even ping inventory slots to help them out. A dead player can still call out switches, food and specs for the people left alive, so being the first to die doesn't mean you're out of the fight.

Raid Layout: Choose Your Path

Every run includes five encounters out of a total of eight bosses. The first and last are always the same. The Archive Guardian sits right in the central chamber, a bit like how the Tombs of Amascut's hub room connects every path. For the three in the middle, you pick one of two doors for each row as you move through the chamber:

  1. The Archive Guardian: always the opener.
  2. Choose one: Bork (and the Smorks) or Ezekiel, a ruthless justiciar of Saradomin.
  3. Choose one: Dreadnoth the Jellied, the product of a demonic ritual gone wrong, or a mysterious necromancer.
  4. Choose one: Xarth, a Tormented Demon unlike any you've fought before, or the Dagon'hai Trio.
  5. The final boss: a hooded figure whose identity is still being kept secret.

These choices are not random, and you never need to scout a layout. The same pairs are offered every single run. Each pair is balanced to be similarly difficult and to award the same number of contribution points, so your choice comes down to your team's gear, team size and which fights your group handles best.

Jagex expects a "meta" route to appear, and they're fine with that. That said, the best route is likely to change depending on team size, what gear your group has, and new items released in the future.

The big question from experienced raiders is whether this ends up with three bosses everyone kills and three nobody touches. The best outcome is something like the Vasa and Vespula rooms in the Chambers of Xeric, where the right pick depends on your team's gear rather than one boss simply being easier. For example, a team without strong crush weapons like Inquisitor's gear might steer away from the crush-heavy option. Which room favours which style is still unknown, so expect the first week to be spent working it out. Every boss will also get its own Combat Achievements, so if you're going for completion you'll have to learn all eight. (Need help with CAs elsewhere? See our combat achievement services.)

Supplies: Plan Your Inventory Carefully

  • There's a points-based resupply partway through, similar to the Helpful Spirit at ToA or the supply chest at ToB. How well you've played up to that point affects how much you get.
  • There are no Overloads and no equivalent of ToA's Smelling salts. You'll need to bring your own boosting potions: Super combat potions, Ranging potions, Divine variants and so on.
  • You can't bank or deposit items during the raid. What you bring in is what you've got.

Because every team needs its own boosts, expect combat potion prices on the Grand Exchange to climb around launch. If you're planning lots of attempts, stock up early.

Practice Mode (Coming After Launch)

Instead of an Entry Mode, the Fractured Archive is getting a Practice Mode, but not on release day. Jagex will turn it on later so that everyone chasing early clears goes in blind on the real difficulty. (When the Tombs of Amascut launched, easier modes let some players see the mechanics early.)

Once it's live:

  • You can practise any boss or boss phase, as long as you've already reached it in a real raid.
  • All supplies are refunded.
  • You can bring friends along.

So you can't practise the final boss before you've ever gotten there. The idea is to push as far as you can, drill the phase that keeps wiping your team, then push further. Practising at full difficulty also means you won't pick up bad habits that only work on an easier mode.

Compare that with ToB, where practising one late-raid mechanic means running a full Entry Mode raid just to reach it. Being able to start at the exact phase you're stuck on, without paying for supplies, should make learning this raid much faster.

Fractured Archive Rewards: Every Unique

Here's the full list of unique rewards. These are the rewards players voted through in the rewards poll, and they're launching unchanged. Jagex hasn't published drop rates yet.

  • Elemental Fragments (untradeable): Each one adds +2 to your base max hit for its element. Because the bonus is added to your base max hit, it's boosted by Magic damage bonuses and multiplied by elemental weaknesses. There's dupe protection, so you shouldn't end up with a pile of the same element.
  • Archivist's Folio (untradeable): A teleport straight back to the Archive, charged with Ascension shards.
  • Ascension shards: A stackable resource used to charge the Folio and the Obligator, and to make Ascension bolts.
  • Zeal: An upgrade to Piety that adds another +5% Attack and Strength on top. The unlock item is tradeable, but unlocking it takes more than just reading a scroll. The Record Keeper may be involved.
  • The Rondache (tradeable): A shield that reduces incoming Melee, Ranged and Magic damage by 2. The blocked damage is stored as charges you can release instantly as a quick Shield Bash.
  • Zorya's Tome (tradeable): A two-handed book that casts spells every 3 ticks. Its main appeal is the special attack, which gives you a burst of rapid, more accurate and harder-hitting attacks.
  • Ascension crossbows (tradeable): A pair of crossbows wielded together that fire only Ascension bolts. They're basically a raid-tier upgrade to the Toxic Blowpipe. Gem-tipped Ascension bolts have a 50% lower chance of triggering their effects.
  • The Obligator: The megarare. Think of it as a Crush version of the Scythe of Vitur. Its 5-tick Lunge can roll damage up to five times depending on how weak the target is to Crush compared with other melee styles. It has a range of 3 and can hit up to 3 enemies in a line. You can also switch to a faster 3-tick Smash that drops the extra rolls and multi-target hits.

How points work: Each boss pair awards the same points, so your route doesn't affect your chance of a unique. Damage you do to adds counts towards your share of a room's points, but every room has a fixed points total, so you can't farm points by dragging fights out. Helping the team control adds doesn't cost you anything. Taking a support role is no longer a loot penalty, which should make splitting jobs much less awkward than in some older raids.

Regular loot is meant to sit a bit below the Theatre of Blood (which is very generous). Jagex says it's being more careful after ToA, whose common drops crashed some markets (Torstol seeds are still recovering). Ascension shard prices are the big unknown until things settle after launch.

Launch Day: Can't Raid? Watch Instead

If you can't put a team together on the 20th, Jagex is running a relaxed launch-day watch party on the official Old School Twitch channel, hosted by Mod Ayiza and Mod Kieren. It won't be a full race-to-world-first broadcast. Expect highlights from creators' runs, guest appearances and interviews with the developers behind the raid.

If you want to watch the race itself, several top PvM players are putting together teams for world first and will be streaming their runs live. It's also the best free lesson you'll get. Watching the top teams figure out each room on day one will teach you more than any guide that exists before launch.

Your Pre-Launch Checklist

  1. Finish While Guthix Sleeps (and its prerequisites).
  2. Stock up on Guthixian temple teleport scrolls for getting to the raid until your first Folio drops.
  3. Work out your team. 3-5 players is the recommended size, so start organising a regular group now.
  4. Stock up on boosting potions and food. There are no Overloads, no salts and no banking inside, and every wipe costs you everything you used.
  5. Cover more than one combat style. Route choice will depend on your team's gear, so a team with strong melee (including crush), ranged and magic options will have more paths open.
  6. Brush up on raid basics. If you're new to raiding, start with our Theatre of Blood guide, since ToB is the closest match in difficulty and wipe rules. Our Tombs of Amascut guide is a good place to learn team bossing too.
  7. Practise your prayer switching. It's a must for any raid. Our prayer flicking guide covers the basics.

The Fractured Archive looks like the most demanding group content Old School has released in years. It has strict wipe rules, no Overloads, a choice of boss routes and a megarare Crush weapon. Get the quest done, get your team together and make sure your gear is ready before October 20th.

Getting ready for Raids 4? → Finish While Guthix Sleeps and its prerequisites with our OSRS questing services. → Get raid experience in the current raids with our OSRS raid services. → Work through the content you've been putting off with our PvM services.