Rocket League New Cover

Description

The original soundtrack for Rocket League was released both physically and digitally on July 1, 2015. It contains original compositions by Psyonix sound designer Mike Ault, as well as contributions by Ault's electronic music group, Hollywood Principle. New songs were added to the game with post-release updates, including "Chaos Run Theme" by Kevin Riepl, "Escape from LA " by Abandoned Carnival and Ault, and a remix of Hollywood Principle's "Breathing Underwater" by Ether. These songs were later compiled in the second volume of the soundtrack, which was released on July 7, 2016. iam8bit published a three-disc vinyl version of the soundtrack, consisting of the above two volumes, in late 2016. The game's 2nd anniversary update included a musical content pack featuring releases from the EDM label, Monstercat. The label have also released a series of standalone albums featuring the music, titled Rocket League x Monstercat.


Downloadable content

Psyonix plans to continue to support Rocket League with downloadable content , intending to keep all gameplay updates as free and only charging for cosmetic items. In November 2015, a free update added the ability to "Mutate" a match, allowing for a number of different custom presets and match settings, including a low gravity mode and a cubed ball, among other improvements and additions. Through this, Psyonix is able to offer custom game playlists to test out new modes or for holiday-themed events. For example, during the latter part of December 2015, Psyonix introduced an ice hockey-based mutation alongside a special event featuring holiday-themed decorative items, replacing the normal ball with a hockey puck, and changing the floor to ice. This mode proved very popular and was permanently added to the standard playlists on February 24, 2016. In February 2016, a new game playlist called "Rocket Labs" was added to offer new experimental maps to players as a means to gauge feedback and interest in a map before adding it to the game's standard map playlist. In April 2016, the developers added the basketball-based playlist to the standard playlists. A new "Rumble" mode, which adds unique power-ups on various maps, was released in September 2016.The game's first DLC pack, titled Supersonic Fury, was released in August 2015, along with new arena Utopia Coliseum. It contains exclusive cosmetics, including two new cars, rocket boosts, wheels, five paint finishes, and twelve decals for both new cars. The same month, it was announced that Rocket League would be ported to macOS and Linux later that year, in order to run natively with SteamOS hardware; Rocket League and Portal 2 were part of incentives for those that pre-ordered a Steam Link, a Steam Controller, or a Steam Machine. The game's second DLC pack, titled Revenge of the Battle-Cars, was released in October 2015. The DLC adds two more cars from Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, along with exclusive cosmetics for both. In another event, players had a chance to collect six Halloween-themed items from October 18 to November 2. The game's third DLC pack, titled Chaos Run, was released in December 2015. The DLC added two more cars, along with more cosmetics. A new arena, called "Wasteland", was released for free alongside the DLC. The map is notable for being the first non-standard arena to be released, having a different size and shape than the others and inspired by the Mad Max films, the first of which Psyonix plans to release over time.In June 2016, a new arena, Neo Tokyo, based on the Rocket Labs layout Underpass, was added to the game via an update. The update also introduced cosmetic items awarded at the end of matches with various rarity grades, and gave players the ability to trade multiple items of the same type and rarity grade to obtain an item of a better rarity grade. Also included in the patch are a number of painted and certified items, the latter of which are cosmetic items with statistics-recording tags, and eight new achievements. Psyonix added the ability for players to trade items with other players within the "Rumble" update, including item and crate drop systems comparable to Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, in which players have the chance to gain locked crates from playing in competitive matches. Players are able to purchase keys to open these crates through microtransactions, revealing special decorative items for their cars. Players can opt-out of this feature to disable crate drops. Though items received in crates are tradable within the game, these items cannot be sold on the platform's respective marketplaces so as to prevent issues in the same vein as the Counter-Strike skin gambling controversy. The funds from microtransactions would be used to support the eSports tournaments organized by Psyonix. In October 2016, a major update titled "Aquadome" launched, featuring a new arena placed under the sea, along with two new premium water-themed cars, and a new crate containing new items and seven new achievements.Psyonix was able to make licensing agreements to include vehicles and decorative items from other franchises within the game. On launch, the PlayStation 4 version included Sweet Tooth's car from the Twisted Metal series. As a separate DLC, the DeLorean time machine from the Back to the Future film franchise, was released on October 21, 2015, corresponding with Back to the Future Day. The Xbox One release includes platform-exclusive Gears of War and Halo-themed vehicles. In 2016, Psyonix announced their wish to include KITT from the 1980s television series, Knight Rider. The Batmobile, as seen in the 2016 film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, was offered as a playable vehicle in March 2016, while Dominic Toretto's Dodge Charger from the film The Fate of the Furious was added to tie in with the film's release in April 2017. An update released in July 2017 introduced a new arena celebrating the one-year anniversary of the game, along with cosmetic items based on the American animated show Rick & Morty. Alongside the theatrical release of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Pysonix released Jurassic Park and Jurassic World-themed content, including a Jurassic Park-themed Jeep Wrangler car model.In September 2015, Psyonix held a cross-promotion with Torn Banner Studios, adding two free new flags themed after Torn Banner's Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. At the same time the "Chaos Run" DLC was released, Psyonix added free cosmetics and accessories from the Portal series by Valve Corporation. Themed content based on Goat Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator were added to the game in April 2016 as part of cross-promotional deals with those games. Other themed promotional content includes decorative items based on The Witcher and Worms W.M.D. With the release of the basketball game mode in 2016, Psyonix partnered with the National Basketball Association , offering flags with all 30 NBA team logos as car customization items. In February 2017, two iconic Hot Wheels cars were added to the game, along with other cosmetic items based on the brand.


Release
Rocket League was officially announced as the sequel to Battle-Cars in February 2014. Building on the effects from the lack of marketing with Battle-Cars, Psyonix developed a different marketing approach to Rocket League. This included engaging with YouTube and Twitch.tv video game streamers with early release copies to help spread the word, recognizing that clips from the game would be readily shared through social media. They also opened the game to early alpha and beta testing for several months following the game's announcement. Davis noted that they otherwise did not spend any money on traditional marketing approaches.They had originally planned to release the game around November 2014, but had missed this deadline to implement better matchmaking and servers, high frame rates, and removing the free-to-play elements. The game was released publicly on July 7, 2015 for the PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows. Davis considered this serendipitous, as this moved the game out from a busy period of many major releases during the holiday season to the relatively quiet mid-year period, reducing the amount of competition from other titles. Further, the game on release was made part of Instant Game Collection on the PlayStation 4 and free to PlayStation Plus subscribers; within the week, Psyonix had seen more than 183,000 unique players, exceeding their server capacity and requiring them to improve on their network code to handle the influx of players. Davis estimated there were 6 million downloads of the game from this promotion, and considered this the "best decision we ever made".Psyonix and Xbox announced at The Game Awards 2015 that the game would be ported to Xbox One, and it was released on February 17, including all previous DLC packs for free, with the exception of the Back to the Future DLC pack, which is available for purchase separately, and the PlayStation 4-exclusive items.Ports for macOS and Linux were released as a beta on September 8, 2016. A retail version of Rocket League, in form of the game's Collector's Edition, was announced in February 2016, and was released in Europe on June 24, 2016 and in North America on July 5, 2016. The Collector's Edition is published and distributed by 505 Games, and includes the first three downloadable content packs for free, as well as four additional cars to be available as digital download on July 18: Aftershock and Marauder , as well as Esper and Masamune. In October 2017, Psyonix announced that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment would begin to publish an updated version of the game for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles by the end of that year, which includes additional content for both versions.The PlayStation 4 version was patched in February 2017 to offer PlayStation 4 Pro support, allowing for 4K resolution and constant 60 frames-per-second rendering at 1080p for one and two-player split-screen players; three and four-player split screen will render up to 60 frames-per-second when possible. Similar rendering improvements were also made to the standard PlayStation 4 to approach constant 60 frames-per-second for most arenas and modes.After reviewing the feasibility of doing so, Psyonix announced that Rocket League would also be released for the Nintendo Switch, as revealed during Nintendo's press conference during E3 2017. It was released later that year on November 14, and includes Nintendo property customization options, including Mario, Luigi, and Metroid-inspired car designs, and supports cross-platform play with the PC and Xbox One versions. Due to the Switch's lack of natural support for Unreal Engine 3, some compromises had to be made in the porting process, such as by reducing the graphical quality to 720p. Despite having to do custom work to make the game run smoothly on the Switch, Psyonix's Jeremy Dunham was impressed with the work that had been done before release.Austin, Texas-based studio Panic Button Games assisted Psyonix with the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch ports, and graphical updates to support the PlayStation 4 Pro. In April 2017, Psyonix announced that they had partnered with Tencent to bring a free-to-play version of Rocket League to the Chinese gaming market, with users able to purchase cosmetic items through microtransactions.Because of the continued growth of the game's player base, Psyonix's Dunham said they do not anticipate creating any sequel to the game, and instead are expecting to continue to add new features to the game over several years' time, calling this an "infinite support window". A small team within Psyonix was set up to explore new features and gameplay ideas to continue to expand Rocket League.


Cross-promotions
Psyonix teamed with Internal Drive to provide Rocket League as part of the latter's iD Tech summer educational camps for children, using the game for both recreation and for teaching elements of game design. In 2017, the game served as a sponsor of WWE pay-per-view events Backlash, Great Balls of Fire, and SummerSlam. The following year, the companies announced a further partnership, with WWE cosmetic items introduced to the game in April.Psyonix partnered with Zag Toys to produce a series of pullback toy cars based on the Rocket League vehicles, which released in June 2017. Some of these included a redeemable code that can be used within the game for unique customization items. The developers also filmed television advertisements for Rocket League that started airing the same month. Alongside these ads, Psyonix offered free copies of Rocket League alongside purchase of selected Nvidia graphic cards. Hot Wheels will release a real-life RC car game set based on the game in late 2018. It will feature two RC cars from the game that are controlled through Bluetooth devices, a play field, a ball containing infrared sensors for scoring purposes, and charging devices.


Professional competition

Psyonix had observed the popularity of Rocket League matches on Twitch. Hill Climb Racing 2
.tv and other live streaming platforms, and in February 2016, were looking to use the game more in eSports. Design Home
. In March 2016, Psyonix announced the first Rocket League Championship Series; the finals took place in August 2016 with a $55,000 prize pool. Fashion Story™
. More than $1 million in revenues from the sale of in-game crates and cosmetic items were used to fund additional competitive events throughout the year, including smaller competitions at major gaming conventions and support for community-run competitive events. Paper.io
.Soon after release, Rocket League became an officially sponsored eSport, joining ESL. Rolly Vortex
. In September 2015, Major League Gaming announced the first season of the Pro Rocket League, which was held in September through early October. A $75,000 Rocket League tournament was held outside U.S. Bank Stadium at the Summer X Games in July 2017, with the finals streamed live on ESPN3. NRG Esports claimed their first live Rocket League championship by winning the tournament, defeating Gale Force eSports in the final. As NBC's first foray into eSports, NBC Sports Group, in conjunction with Faceit, ran its own $100,000-prize pool tournament which was broadcast acros