Ironman Mode and Hardcore Ironman Mode are account-types that encourage the player to be entirely self-sufficient. Both types of Ironman mode are locked out of most forms of interactions with other players such as trading, the Grand Exchange, most group minigames, PvP, and almost all other group activities. The modes were released on 13 October 2014. They are accessible only via a dropdown menu on the character creation screen.
Once character creation is complete, these modes may only be turned off using in-game items such as the Jar of divine light and the Book of diplomacy, to turn off Hardcore and regular Ironman modes respectively. Both items are sold by Mr Ex, and neither action can be undone.
Hardcore players have the added challenge of only having one "life". As soon as they die, their account is permanently locked, unless they have purchased the Jar of divine light. If they have done so, the item will be activated upon death from either the player's bank or the inventory and will convert the account into a regular Ironman account. There is also an option to buy an extra life (divine coin) at total levels 1000 and 1600 for 100,000 and 10,000,000 coins respectively. This is so that people who have already progressed far into the game are able to avoid losing their accounts from lag, bugs, etc.
Hardcore Ironmen that have died may still access the in-game lobby, and death does not affect the Old School RuneScape game in any way.
Benefits
Ironmen 'benefits' are entirely cosmetic in nature, or otherwise don't impact gameplay directly. A few are quality-of-life focused.
Examining a tradeable item while in Ironman Mode will display the high alchemy price instead of its Grand Exchange value. The Price checker will also function this way, however loot beams are still based on Grand Exchange value.
Ironmen are identifiable by a 
dark grey dumbbell chat badge, and Hardcore Ironmen have a 
red skull chat badge. These cannot be disabled and the Premier club chat badge cannot be enabled.
Ironmen have access to the titles "Ironman [Name] / Ironwoman [Name]" and "[Name] the Ironman / [Name] the Ironwoman"; Hardcore Ironmen can used the titles "Hardcore Ironman [Name] / Hardcore Ironwoman [Name]" or "[Name] the Hardcore Ironman / [Name] the Hardcore Ironwoman". These can be changed to any other unlocked title, however.
Two separate hiscores exist, one for each of the two types of Ironman. When a Hardcore Ironman account gets deleted or downgraded, that account is not removed from the Hardcore hiscores, but their hiscores at the time of downgrading are kept, unable to change further.
A global announcement is issued whenever a hardcore ironman with a total level of at least 1000 dies.
Ironmen have access to Ironman Armour override, and hardcore ironmen to HC Ironman Armour override.
Hardcore deaths
"Safe" Deaths in Hardcore Mode
Deaths are non-permanent in hardcore mode if they are counted as "safe death" in the regular game. In general, if you would keep all of your items as a non-hardcore account, the death is safe for hardcore ironmen.
Examples include:
- Any death in which a player is resurrected by a sign of life, sign of death, portent of life, or portent of death, or the Immortality ability
- Dying in a Player-owned house
- Dying inside a Dungeoneering floor
- Dying to the parasites on Tuska's back during the Tuska Comes world event
- Most combat-related minigames, e.g.:
- Clan Wars white and purple portal
- Any death within the Duel Arena, Castle Wars, Dominion Tower, etc
- Dying in the TzHaar Fight Cave, Fight Kiln, or Fight Cauldron
- Dying during Troll Invasion
- Some quest-specific deaths:
- Falling off the pathway in Demon Slayer
- Dying to Agoroth or a Crassian warrior during A Shadow over Ashdale
- Dying to Dawn during The Death of Chivalry
- Dying to Drakan during Lord of Vampyrium
- Dying to Sharathteerk or Zemouregal during Dimension of Disaster: Curse of Arrav
- Getting hit with a dragonkin fireball in Missing, Presumed Death or Ritual of the Mahjarrat
- Dying in the mansion in Broken Home
- Dying to the 4th stage of Koschei the deathless during The Fremennik Trials
- Dying against TokHaar-Hok during The Brink of Extinction
Death announcements
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Hardcore death notification
If the Hardcore account has at least a total level of 1000, a description of their cause of death is globally broadcasted.
[NAME] just died in Hardcore Ironman mode with a skill total of [TOTAL LEVEL] [REASON OF DEATH].
Death reasons include:
- 'to an unknown power' - default message
- 'in a PVP battle with [NAME OF KILLER]' - killed in the Wilderness by another player
- 'fighting against: [NAME OF NPC]' - killed in combat by an NPC
- 'by succumbing to poison' - killed by poison
- 'by standing in the fire' - being caught by the flames in The World Wakes
- 'with their hand in someone else's pocket' - killed by failing a pickpocket
- 'succumbing to the heat of the desert' - killed by desert heat effect
- 'playing with fire' - killed during The Firemaker's Curse
- 'setting off a trap'
- 'by breaking the rules of Ironman mode' - Killed by a Jmod for rule breaking
- 'to skittering insects in the dark' - killed by having a lightsource extinguished in a dark location
- 'via electrocution' - Lightning Strike on Freneskae
- 'by playing with fireworks'
- 'by insulting the elder god Jas' - killed in Sliske's Endgame
Restrictions
Both Ironman and Hardcore Ironman modes restrict player-to-player interaction in the following ways:
- Trading is disabled, with a few exceptions:
- Bonds (can only receive bonds as ironman, not trade them away)
- Shield of Arrav items:
- Heroes' Quest items:
- Items dropped by other players and the monsters they kill cannot be picked up, except special items such as:
- Maul of Omens and its pieces
- Planks at Yakamaru
- Bounty emblem (t1) drop from a target kill in Bounty Hunter minigame
- The Grand Exchange can only be used to purchase bonds.
- Daemonheim cannot be entered with other players.
- Co-op Slayer is disabled.
- The assist system is disabled.
- Grouping system can only be used for the Liberation of Mazcab raid.
- Group buffs, such as Clan avatars and or any such buffs from Treasure Hunter, are disabled.
- Ironmen cannot summon the Clan avatar.
- Skilling in the Clan Citadel will only provide 25% of the xp normally earned.
- Training Dummies and Divine Locations owned by other players cannot be used. Buffs from others using your own divine location are also disabled.
- Features in other players' player-owned houses are disabled.
- Daily challenges will only provide rewards related to the challenge you have just completed (e.g. you will be rewarded with fishing related items for completing a fishing related challenge) and will reward you with only half the value of the initial resources (e.g. turning in 30 magic logs will result in a mystery bag containing 15 magic logs).
- Vic the trader is disabled.
- Double xp weekends are disabled.
- During events such as winter weekends, the double xp and reputation in Artisans Workshop is disabled.
Minigames
- Various minigames and D&Ds are completely disabled, including Blast Furnace, Demon Raids, Fishing Trawler, Fist of Guthix, Flash Powder Factory, Heist, Stealing Creation, Sinkholes, Trouble Brewing, and Wilderness Warbands.
- Music for disabled minigames can be obtained by trying to enter the minigame.
- Several activities are otherwise limited, such as Clan Wars, Dominion Tower, and Vinesweeper.
- Group rumble matches in the Tower are disabled.
- XP rewards and certain item rewards are restricted or disabled in many minigames and D&Ds, such as Barbarian Assault, Clan Wars, Conquest, Mobilising Armies, Pest Control, Great Orb Project, Soul Wars, and the TzHaar Fight Pit.
- Great Orb Project restrictions include talismans, teleport tablets (except one Blood tablet for Morytania tasks), and gear excluding cosmetics.
- The zeal reward from Nomad's Requiem can be spent on experience.
- Thaler can be obtained from minigames that are accessible to Ironmen, however it can only be spent on rewards that are otherwise available to Ironmen, with some exceptions.
- All pieces of minigame hybrid armour can be bought.
- Barbarian Assault armour is restricted.
- Only pets can be bought in the Misc section.
- Limited edition items cannot be bought.
- Both the Duel Arena and Conquest have staking disabled.
- Ironmen cannot purchase Annihilation, Decimation, or Obliteration weapons or the Amulet of the forsaken from the Bounty Hunter & Deathmatch Reward Shop
Tasks
Several tasks are replaced with ironman-only versions, as they involve content that ironmen cannot access:
- Ardougne Tasks:
- Daemonheim Tasks:
- It's Dangerous to go Alone: instead of doing a dungeon of 2 or more players, ironmen must complete a medium dungeon in complexity 6
- Kitchen Aid: Instead of feeding a teammate, ironmen must attempt to feed a familiar
- Sinking Fast: instead of completing a sinkhole, ironmen must simply click on the entrance of one
- Totem Pole Position: instead of handing in 20 items in a sinkhole, ironmen must enter 6 resource dungeons of level 35 and below in 6 minutes
- Wilderness Tasks:
- Camping is in Tents: instead of looting supplies from a warband, an ironman needs to just attempt to loot supplies
Combat and bosses
- Any NPCs killed will award XP depending on how much damage you have done to it, not the full exp set on the monster.
- Ironmen have to deal over 50% damage to regular monsters or they won't get the drops.
- All PvP activities will neither award XP nor loot, except tier 1 emblem drops in Bounty Hunter.
- Ironmen can only use custom encounters for bosses (instances set in the "Standard" spawn speed are free despite the requirements section stating otherwise, however instances with the "Fast" and "Fastest" spawn speeds are still paid for) except for Araxxor.
- Only ironmen can join ironman instances.
- LootShare and CoinShare can only be used inside boss instances with other ironmen. It is immediately turned off if a non-boss monster is killed (boss minions don't count).
- Amount of players allowed in boss instances is limited further than regular accounts. It is 5 for most bosses, exceptions are:
- Kalphite King: 10
- Vorago: 10
- Vorago Hardmode: 15
- Group bosses (Barrows - Rise of the Six, the Kalphite King, Raids, and Vorago) can be fought only with other ironmen.
- "Group" and "Other" spells (e.g. cure-, tele-, heal-, and vengeance other) as well as boost potion share don't work when used on an ironman.
- Ironmen can only benefit from the ice asylum ability if they used it themselves.
- Group Seren spells and prayers are disabled including all prisms.
- Ironman players are unable to hit the WildyWyrm.
Microtransactions
- Treasure Hunter is completely disabled.
- This includes non-cosmetic items (such as silverhawk boots) which are sometimes obtainable outside Treasure Hunter (like in the Thaler shop or Advent calendar).
- Many Treasure Hunter promotions with free aspects are partially completable by ironmen, for example Attack of the Zombie Sprouts allowed ironmen to do the 200 daily fatigue (for experience and to unlock one set of wings) but they could not obtain the additional sprays needed fully complete the promotion
- Wicked pouches, challenge gems and clan citadel boosters cannot be purchased (or used) from Solomon's General Store.
- Some Legendary pet features cannot be used: life saver, slayer finisher, repair and fertiliser.
- Recruit a Friend does not provide any bonuses to Ironmen (however, those recruited will still get their bonus).
- Dwarven instinct aura rewards are reduced.
- Mahjarrat aura's 50% monthly boost cannot be used.
- Some Desert pantheon aura effects cannot be used: Scabaras, Apmeken. Hardcore ironmen cannot use Icthlarin.
- VIP chat badge cannot be toggled on.
First to achievements
Global announcements are broadcast for various firsts, including the first hardcore death, the first to achieve a total level of 500 and 1000, the first to reach level 99 in a skill, and the first to complete various quests.
Beta
On 30 September 2014, around 130 players were selected to participate in the Ironman Mode Beta after receiving a message on 26 September, while others were also selected from certain competitions.
These accounts have usernames in the format "irontrial###" ranging from 1 to 130; however, all players were allowed to change their name.
When Ironman Mode was officially released, the beta accounts could still be played, but they would not appear on the Hiscores.
Trivia
- There is currently a glitch where the armour dropped by Revenants (such as Corrupt dragon equipment and Ancient Warriors' equipment), when degraded, will refund the player with the Grand Exchange price instead of the High Level Alchemy price.
- It is currently possible for Ironman and Hardcore Ironman accounts to receive a 5 year and 10 year veteran cape, but only if the character creation process was never completed.
Ironman Mode | |
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| Ironman | |
| Hardcore Ironman |
 Jar of divine light HC Ironman Armour |
| Related |
 Mr Ex |
Account types | |
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| Staff | |
| Player |
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| Volunteer |
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