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RuneScape: Dragonwilds "failed to load player state" error

RuneScape: Dragonwilds server status →RuneScape: Dragonwilds servers →

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IsThisGameDown

Last checked

September 23, 2026

Steam Discussions — multiple "failed to load player state" reports, 26 June 2026 ↗

Trying to log into your main character throws "Error: failed to load player state" and dumps you back to the start/character-select menu, while newly created characters on the same account load fine.

Also appears as: dragonwilds failed to load player state, error failed to load player state dragonwilds, runescape dragonwilds character wont load, dragonwilds cant load main character

This surfaced as a cluster of independent Steam Discussions reports on June 26, 2026, all describing the identical error text and the same pattern: an existing, previously-working character suddenly won't load after a patch, but a brand-new character loads normally. Cross-posting between Reddit and Steam converged on a specific trigger: one player wrote "after talking on reddit with others having this issue. It seems to be due to latest patch and having the fire cape" — meaning owning that specific item is the suspected common thread, not something wrong with the account or save file in general.

No Jagex reply or patch-note acknowledgment has surfaced for this specific error, and the original poster tried switching to older local save backups without it resolving the issue for a character that already has the fire cape. Treat this as unresolved on Jagex's end rather than something with a known local fix.

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What to try

  1. 01

    Owning a fire cape is the suspected common thread (no fix yet)

    If you have, or recently crafted, a fire cape, that's the pattern several independent players traced this to right after a June 2026 patch. There's no official fix yet, so this is information to include when reporting the bug, not a confirmed workaround.

    Reported
  2. 02

    Try renaming the character.json.backup file (unconfirmed)

    Try the character-file backup swap some players use for other, similar loading failures: back up, then rename character.json.backup to character.json in %localappdata%\RSDragonwilds\Saved\SaveCharacters. This isn't confirmed to work for the fire-cape-specific case, but it's the standard recovery step for a character that won't load.

    Unconfirmed
  3. 03

    Report it in the official Discord's #bug-reports channel

    Report it in the official Discord's #bug-reports channel with your character's recent item history — no Jagex acknowledgment has appeared in the Steam threads describing this as of this writing.

    Unconfirmed

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