Rocket League has reached 1 million concurrent players. This was revealed in a tweet by Psyonix Co-Studio Head Corey Davis. The news comes just days after the game decided to go the free-to-play route.
The shift has been in the works since Rocket League's developer was acquired by Epic Games last year. This move to free-to-play means that Rocket League's presence on Steam is going to be decreased. What this means is that while current players can still access the game through the Steam platform, new players need to go to the Epic Games Store to download Rocket League.
Along with the move to a free-to-play format, Rocket League released an accompanying patch which introduces Season One as well as some Challenges.
Season One
The Season One Rocket Pass is already live and features the new Harbinger Car Body. For the Competitive Scene, which started on September 22, three new Competitive Ranks were added.
For starters, Grand Champion II & III are going to sit above the current Grand Champion Rank and give it that needed separation between players in this tier. In addition, the Grand Champion Rank color is now Red in order to better distinguish it from the Champion Rank.
For those who managed to exceed the two new ranks, they’re going to reach the Supersonic Legend Rank, which is shown by its white icon. This new rank is going to be exclusive and based on historical ranking data. It’s going to be rather difficult, but not necessarily impossible, to obtain.
Tournament
Rocket League announced that with the patch, the Tournament system is fully live on all platforms as well as across all supported regions. In order to take part in Competitive Tournaments players need to complete placement matches in the Competitive Playlist.
Challenges
The patch has both improved and expanded the Challenges to allow for more chances to all types of players. There are now three varieties which are:
- Weekly Challenges that need to be completed the week that they are active.
- Season Challenges that can be complete any time before the season ends.
- Challenges are unlocked in stages as the season progresses.
- Event Challenges are those that become available during special events and bring limited time rewards.
This may seem like a lot, especially to new players. However, there are what are known as New Driver Challenges that are specifically designed for these newbies. This is going to be visible to new players through the Challenges Menu and Widget.
You can view the complete patch notes here.
