Developer's blog: The Theatre of Blood & Ver Sinhaza

On the 7th of June 2018, Oldschool RuneScape's second raid was released beneath the vampyre castle of Ver Sinhaza. The Theatre of Blood challenged players with six unique boss encounters, testing coordination and skill in ways the game hadn't seen before.

Nearly 8 years later, we're bringing the theatre's dark grandeur to life in HD. This marks our first complete raid remaster, representing our vision of what this raid would have looked like if it was released in 2009.

The challenge of darkness

One of the defining characteristics of the Theatre of Blood has always been its dark atmosphere. The vampyres' blood sport arena needed to feel intimidating and dangerous, yet we faced a familiar challenge: maintaining that dark aesthetic while keeping the game functional. Players frequently voice concerns when areas become too dark to navigate comfortably, so we had to strike a careful balance.

The boss rooms each required their own lighting considerations. We needed visibility for mechanics without sacrificing atmosphere. Take the Pestilent Bloat encounter, for instance. The shadows that indicate danger zones needed to be immediately readable, so we increased their contrast significantly. The room remains dark and claustrophobic, but the information players need remains clear.

Previously, Sotetseg's projectiles had been reusing the Inferno's projectile effects, which resulted in a visual mismatch. We've now created distinct graphical effects for his ranged (green-white) and magic (orange) attacks, making them immediately distinguishable.

HD Pack 42: Bringing the theatre to life

HD Packs enhance groups of Oldschool models with custom assets that align with the HD art style. This HD Pack targets the Theatre of Blood in its entirety, covering all six boss rooms, the entrance lobby, the reward chamber, and the surrounding areas of Ver Sinhaza.

The raid's release came years after the original HD era ended, meaning we had no historical references to work from. Everything from terrain overhauls to particle effects needed to be created with careful attention to both the HD aesthetic and Oldschool's mechanical clarity.

Remastered environments

All major areas received full environment treatment. Each boss room has its own distinct atmosphere, from the gothic style of Maiden's chamber to the intricacies of Verzik's throne room.

We also extended the restoration to Ver Sinhaza itself, the Icyene Graveyard used by the Sins of the Father quest, and the surrounding ocean. The waters around Slepe Sound and Muskshore Sea now use new HD waters, and the underworld has been added beneath them. Additionally, we fixed some shoreline issues in South Meiyerditch that had persisted with the area's original maps, allowing them to blend together better. The underwater terrain for the ocean has been sampled from the original Meiyerditch shores and should look identical.

Particles and lighting effects

This update showcases what our particle system is capable of. We've been gradually using more billboard effects in recent updates, and the Theatre of Blood allowed us to demonstrate this more prominently after fixing a rendering issue that had previously limited their use.

The blazing braziers throughout the raid come in two variants: blood-themed braziers with blazing red magical fires, and smaller bat-looking lantern braziers. We textured them and added the flame effects, inspired from the original Theatre of Blood concept art. Each uses custom particle effects that we configured specifically for this environment, with the billboards themselves being repurposed from the HD era.

Separately, the blood spawns at Maiden now feature dripping liquid effects, based on water effects that were present in the original version of the game.

The reward room received some special attention, with purple particles that emit from the chest when a player receives a personal unique item, along with lighting effects in the surrounding area. We also added realistic candle flame effects that flicker naturally throughout the chamber, creating a more intimate atmosphere for that post-raid moment of anticipation.

Perhaps most interesting from a technical perspective was our reuse of the Mahjarrat damaged form emitters. During the Ritual of the Mahjarrat quest, these effects showed Lucien smoking and changing as he drew power from the Stone of Jas. We've repurposed them for the Maiden of Sugadinti, having her increasingly smoke and alter her blood flow as she takes damage. It's a subtle effect that adds weight to the encounter's progression.

The Dawnbringer special weapon also received enhanced effects, now utilizing both glowing textures and particle emitters to make its presence feel especially powerful and distinct from regular weaponry.

Improved tooling

The Ghrazi rapier ornament kit received increased polygon count, similarly to the treatment that the regular rapier received a while ago. Our internal tooling to do this has made some significant advancements since then, allowing us to more easily manipulate models and improve their quality in ways similar to what Jagex did with the RuneScape HD update.

Technical hurdles

Not everything went smoothly, of course. We fixed minor z-fighting issues, corrected an animation bug with lightning graphical effects, and resolved a rendering problem on Nylocas Athanatos that had been causing visual artifacts.

The scale of this project meant coordinating changes across dozens of map regions, hundreds of models, and complex particle effects and lighting setups. Each boss room required its own testing to ensure that visual enhancements didn't interfere with gameplay readability.

One unusual challenge was the raid's location itself. We couldn't simply enter the Theatre of Blood on our own to work on it, so we had to temporarily relocate the entire map to Taverley just to view and modify it properly.

Ver Sinhaza's walls posed another compatibility issue. The HD equivalents we initially tried to use were no longer compatible with the current game, causing the roofs above to float. We opted to texture the Oldschool wallkits instead.

What's next?

The Theatre of Blood represents a milestone for us: proof that we can tackle the game's most complex group content while maintaining both visual fidelity and mechanical clarity. The techniques we developed here will serve us well in future projects.

Of course, we're not done yet. We'll be keeping an eye on how things go and listening to your feedback. Whether you're raiding or just exploring Ver Sinhaza, we hope you enjoy what we've created. Good luck in the theatre!

— The HDOS Team