[3] On February 20, 2012 the game was made available on the digital distribution platform Steam for Microsoft Windows and OS X.

[5] Wild Shadow Studios was acquired by Kabam in June 2012 and obtained Realm of the Mad God in the acquisition.

[6] This game client was originally written in Flash and could be played in-browser on the official site, on Kongregate, or could be downloaded from Steam.

Due to the discontinuation of Adobe Flash Support by 2020, it was announced on June 12, 2018, that a remastered version of the client built using the Unity game engine was under development,[7] which was first released to the public through an Open Beta on April 15, 2020, and was officially released as Realm of the Mad God Exalt on July 22, 2020.

The game consists of players firing projectiles and destroying enemies to earn experience, fame, and better equipment.

[9] Contrary to usual practice in MMOs, the experience for killing monsters is awarded fully to each player present, rather than divided.

In addition, players are able to escape to the safety of the Nexus, a safe area where characters can't be killed, at the push of a button (the default keys are R and F5).

The Nexus consists of multiple sections featuring, among other things: a marketplace, healing fountains, and portals to enter realms.

North of the marketplace is a large room that contains multiple portals leading to the "realms" (game map instances present on the server).

During gameplay, the player is directed to "quest" monsters which are indicated by a red marker at the edge of the game window.

The Mountains host powerful monsters known as "Gods", which are significantly stronger than the other foes in the Realm but also provide more experience and better loot.

Upon being unlocked, the players can storm the Mad God's heavily guarded Wine Cellar and face the true Oryx, who is significantly stronger than his previous incarnation and wields a completely new set of attacks.

[12] The rewards of the Oryx boss fights are a large amount of fame and some rare and useful equipment.

These classes are: Wizard, Rogue, Archer, Priest, Warrior, Knight, Paladin, Assassin, Necromancer, Huntress, Mystic, Trickster, Sorcerer, Ninja, Samurai, Bard, Summoner, and Kensei.

Depending on the class or item equipped, abilities can deal damage, inflict debuffs on enemies, buff or heal allies, or otherwise perform a defensive function.

There are ten tiers of bags in the game (in order of increasing rarity): brown, pink, purple, egg baskets, cyan, blue, golden, orange, red, and white.

[14] Brown and pink bags often contain potions of health or mana as well as lower tier gear, and can be seen by everyone when dropped.

Many items, such as stat potions and most equipment, can be traded to other players, even if they were originally dropped in a soulbound bag.

Many of these white bag items can completely change the way a class is played and are highly sought after by players.

In addition to these drops, dungeon bosses typically provide the player with a small possibility of obtaining white bag items that cannot be found anywhere else.

Players are able to work towards maxing eight stats: Dexterity, Speed, Wisdom, Vitality, Attack, Defense, Mana, and Life.

In addition to the experience conversion, players can earn fame bonuses by completing certain challenges or hitting milestones on a character while it is alive.

There are 14 pet families in the game: Aquatic, Automaton, Avian, Canine, Exotic, Farm, Feline, Humanoid, Insect, Penguin, Reptile, Spooky, Woodland, and ???.

[21] Following the initial launch, Spry Fox joined the development team, helping bring the game to a full release out of beta on June 20, 2011.

"[18] The game has been receiving updates "every few weeks" since its release, with additions including "dungeons, new character classes, hundreds of items and monsters, bank space, pets, clothing, guilds" and more.

On June 23, 2016, Kabam announced that they would be transferring Realm of the Mad God to DECA Games on July 15.

A trailer for this was released on December 13, 2019, and revealed the Unity version would be named Realm of the Mad God Exalt.

[37] In addition to the game, there is the second-party website Realmeye, which is a commonly used hub for in-game activity.