Since Rocket League went free-to-play back in September of 2020 (yes it’s been that long), very little has been released by Psyonix. Especially of late, the community has been relaying its frustrations on Twitter about the sad reality that updates these days are just new cars from sponsorship deals.
Recently, Rocket League has dropped from over 1 million concurrent players as a daily peak to around 500k. Now, this is still up a bit from where the game was before it went free-to-play but the active player base seems to be shrinking.
If Rocket League wants to make a big wave and move towards being one of the biggest esports in the world, we need a Rocket League 2.
What? Rocket League 2?
My opinion is that an entirely new game – an entirely new experience of playing the game, or at least an updated one – is what the player base needs. Both those who’ve been playing for years and those who just jumped in.
There are two things I want to see out of Rocket League 2. And I know this may seem like a stretch, but there are quite a few people who actually believe Psyonix is currently working on developing this.
These two things relate to Features and the Game Itself.
Features
Creative Mode
First, we need a Creative Mode. I don’t care if it’s terrible when they release it, just give us something we can go in and have fun with.
It may sound lame but ultimately hobbies are a way of better and expressing yourself; whether it’s basketball or crochet, it’s all a way of doing something you love and feeling like you’re bettering yourself and improving yourself
One of the best ways Psyonix could tap into this for Rocket League players – especially those who are just sort of done with grinding ranked all the time – is to have a place where you can be creative with the game.
Listen. Currently, there are two main communities in Rocket League as a whole: there are the hardcore players who care most about improving and ranking up, and there is the trading community. Behind that, you have the freestyling communities and a few others but those are the two main ones.
Having a Creative Mode would literally create a third community, probaby just as big and vibrant as the other two. An entire community of players building awesome stuff and it would be free content for Psyonix. Let the community build awesome stuff and let the players get to go experience that awesome stuff. I can’t stress enough how awesome and valuable this would be for the game as a whole, so I’ll move on
More Game Modes
Rocket League 2 needs to have more game modes.
Now again, having a Creative Mode is a simple way to fix this. Literally, just feature the best or most played game modes people make. But aside from that, Psyonix figuring out a way to get regular new game modes out, even on a monthly basis, would be massive for the game. It would get those who are maybe not playing as much to jump on and see what’s up.
I think we’ve seen that Psyonix knows how to make new game modes that are fun and compelling. Rocket League 2 needs more of that
More Customisation
Next, we’ve got customisation.
I know. If you really look at the options right now, you can make 400 billion different designed cars. That’s not what I’m talking about.
Again, this is about more creativity for the player. Maybe this is a long shot but do something crazy. Make it so that I can upload a design, like my own design to the car. I know that’s probably not possible for all sorts of reasons, but something along those lines.
A way to make my car look like it’s my own. Few games do this but Rocket League, as the biggest vehicle-based game in the world, should lead the charge.
It’s hard to personalize a skin in Valorant or Fortnite but it’s not in Rocket League.
Updates
Ok. Finally, we need better updates. Nobody cares about cars. Forget that. Nobody cares if you release a Bugatti. We want updates that actually matter. Fixing bugs that should have been fixed four years ago.
Listen to the community and update the game.
The Game
I want to look at the game itself and how it could be changed in Rocket League 2.
I’m not saying that it should be completely and totally different, I just want the gameplay to change. The ability to have new mechanics. Maybe the physics change. Maybe the map changes. Something to change up the meta.
Now, I think your opinion on this will be based on how you view Rocket League as a game within the gaming world. Is Rocket League more like Valorant and Fortnite where the meta literally changes all the time? In Valorant, for instance, new characters change the meta. New maps change the meta.
Or is Rocket League more like CS:GO, where the meta really doesn’t change. I can see both sides, to be honest. But personally, I would rather see a change to the meta.
I cant’ say exactly what this would look like but here are some ideas:
Graphics
An update to the graphics of the game would be massive. And in this case, it does appear things are changing. Rocket League just announced that the game would be moving over to Unreal Engine 5.
I’m not sure this will change the actual game itself in terms of gameplay. But there’s no doubt that having it run on a more powerful, up-to-date engine will mean the game will feel different. It will also mean that things like Creative Mode could be possible in the future.
Regardless, this is what I want to see: a new game, an entirely new game called Rocket League 2 or Rocket League Plus. Whatever it is, we need something different.
Thanks for reading this article, and I hope you guys found something helpful. Again, if you’re looking to hire a coach you can find me here as well as other coaches and courses.
