Rocket League autumn update hits 28th with a farm map
Oh so pretty
An autumnal farmyard map will come to Rocket League [official site] with the next big update alongside those promised standardised versions of oddly-shaped carball pitches, developers Psyonix have confirmed. Last night they announced that the Autumn Update will launch on September 28th, and also started revealing what will follow that. They're working on an in-game tournament system, which will likely hit beta this year then launch in 2018, and are creating a new party system that might one day lead to cross-platform parties. For now, look at this pretty farm:
I'm almost ready to let summer go if it leads to such a gentle seasonal mood. That new map is Farmstead, coming to the Competitive and Casual playlists as well as Private matches "for a limited time." The fake cows and meeple signs do just throw up more questions about Rocket Leauge's weird futureworld, though. I'm starting to think cars are the only surviving humans, either uploaded to hardware or entombed like Warhammer 40,000's Dreadnoughts.
Also expect standardised versions of the Starbase Arc and Wasteland arenas, knocking them into the regular Rocket League shape, as well as several time-of-day and weather variants of other maps.
LAN support will arrive with the update too, letting folks play multiplayer across their local networks rather than needing to route everything online. Another notable change is transparent goalposts, letting goalies see the pitch clearly. Also new: banners to customise your in-game name plate with pictures; a new car coming in a new crate; and more seasonal events, giving 'Decryptors' that can open any crate. Oh, and Season 6 of competitive play will start, obvs.
That's all due on September 28th.
Beyond that, Psyonix expect to launch a public beta test of a tournaments system later this year. It'll let folks run competitions within Rocket League, handling results and brackets and all that. That's a handy one.
A new party system, using Rocket League's own PsyNet rather than going through Steam invites, is coming too. Psyonix say this "is the first step in enabling the possibility of supporting cross-platform parties at a later date." That doesn't mean cross-platform parties will definitely be added, but it's clearly something they're looking at seriously. Fingers crossed, gang.