Rocket League 1.04 Adds Arena And Spectator Mode

Rocket League [official site] is our game of the month for August. Why? Because it's ace and it's about to get even more so with patch 1.04 and the upcoming DLC, Supersonic Fury. The DLC is on the way later this month, but the patch is laying groundwork for it and out now. It's pretty hefty by itself, adding much-needed features such as spectator mode along with a new arena called "Utopia Coliseum" and some apology items for the downtime many users experienced when the game launched. Downtime that happened because it's ace. Details below.

Along with Utopia Coliseum, here are the highlights:

• Added "Vote to Forfeit" button to "Ranked" online matches
• Added 70+ new Country Flags
• "Servergate" Wheels, "Disconnected" Antenna, and "White Flag" are the free "Sorry" items
• Added the ability to create or join Private Matches that can be named and/or password-protected
• Added "Spectate" to "Choose Team" menu in "Private Matches," allowing players the option to watch games rather than participate (3v3 match-type maximum)

Those last two will be particularly useful for the burgeoning competitive scene. Rocket League certainly has the playerbase, interest and skill ceiling to go full e-sports. It's up to the community, Psyonix and places like ESL (who have already begun to run tournaments) to see how far they can push it. Regular new content, both paid and unpaid, will be a must to maintain interest, while it's up to the people that play the game to provide viewership and attendance for a competitive scene.

You can see the full patch notes on Steam or the official site. As it's our game of the month, we've been writing about it constantly. Here's Adam's review and the verdict from the rest of the team. Pip humble bragged about all her best goals via some lovely screenshots. I rounded up all the best clips from the first few weeks of the game and you lovely folks have even started up your own league.