Rocket League is now fully cross-platform compatible. Psyonix has announced that their arena multiplayer phenomenon is now part of the PlayStation Cross-Play Beta, meaning gamers on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC versions can play together in random match-ups. According to the studio post, a cross-platform party system is coming soon, so pals on different systems can stay together.
Rocket League’s full cross-platform play has been a long time coming. Psyonix thanks their fans and their “generous partners” for making this happen, but Sony resisted cross-platform play since it was first floated as a possibility. It was the additional pressure from Epic’s gargantuan Fortnite audience that likely supplied the main push for Sony to open PlayStation’s servers.
Dozens of Rocket League Sony drivers that don’t hold their platform against the other, lesser, hardware versions will now be able to team up and create a beautiful world of cross-platform gaming.
Psyonix has published the drop rates for the loot in their Rocket League crates. According to the developer, the published figures have been true since the system went into effect in September 2016. Like most loot crate schemes, the rarer unlocks require a significant amount of luck to get. For example, the current Black Market tier of unlocks start with a 1% base roll to be present in the crate, and then each particular item in that tier has an equal chance of appearing. The good news is that you’ll probably unlock that common double-lightning decal pretty quickly.
Loot crates are coming to Rocket League and they won’t be using the Steam back-end. It’s actually been rumored for a few weeks that Psyonix would be adding a cosmetic loot system similar to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or Overwatch, but a Reddit user uncovered data in the latest patch that seemed to show images of a crate and key. Psyonix vice president Jeremy Dunham confirmed the images as being legitimate and confessed that they were related to an upcoming loot feature. Scheduled for an official reveal next month, Dunham was quick to point out that the loot system will be for cosmetic items only and the studio would not be using Steam’s back-end system.
There will be no Steam Marketplace integration with crates. We are definitely aware of the problems related to third-party gambling in other games and we are not interested in taking that approach.
Steam has recently been embroiled in various gambling controversies due to shady sites trading and betting on CS:GO loot. While concerns over gambling is good copy, Psyonix would likely use their own loot system anyway since their game is available on consoles as well as PC.
Microsoft is allowing cross-network play, to include other console systems, on the Xbox One. Chris Charla, the director of Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program, announced the upcoming feature while outlining events at the Game Developer’s Conference. Psyonix’s Rocket League will be one of the first games to take advantage of the Xbox One’s cross-network functionality.
While Rocket League on PlayStation 4 has enjoyed cross-network play with PC users on Steam, the Xbox One version previously did not have this capability, a feature deficit that garnered some harsh criticism from fans. Rare games like IDARB do have cross-play with Xbox One and Windows 10 Store versions, but play with gamers outside of Microsoft’s ecosystem is a new, and welcome, development.
Custom matches with mutators are coming to Rocket League. Psyonix announced that a free update in November for their multiplayer car arena sports title will add game-changing modes in the style of Unreal Tournament’s infamous mutators. Options shown in the video include replacing the normal ball with a square one, a low gravity setting, and a slow-motion mode.
Unfortunately, since these cool modes will only be available in custom matches or a separate playlist, it means almost no one will play with the new options enabled. Sad, really. Multiplayer games that only award XP in vanilla ranked matches incentivize the audience to never play in the most interesting battles.
Along with the November update, Psyonix left a little teaser at the end of the video for the December update. Hockey!
