Rocket League Servers Overloaded at Launch, Developer Psyonix Studios Working On Fix

This week, developer Psyonix Studios released their multiplayer car-sport game Rocket League to overwhelmingly positive response. Unfortunately, when I say "overwhelmingly," I'm not being hyperbolic. Players on both PC and PS4 have been unable to consistently connect to the game's servers since the title released on July 7th.

A major part of the problem is that the Rocket League is free on PSN this month, causing huge (and apparently unexpected) strain on the game's servers. Because the game features cross-play between PC and PS4, both platforms have been affected. While this might just seem like a slight annoyance for the players who got Rocket League for free, it's a major frustration for PC players who spent $20 on a multiplayer game that doesn't have functional online multiplayer.

Over on Psyonix's Twitter feed, the studio has been giving players updates on the state of the servers. Things seemed to be working well after a fix went through last night, but today the game ran into more issues.

According to Psyonix, a fix for these issues should be released soon, and I'm crossing my fingers that things will stabilize soon. The studio has also said that they have plans to improve the overall multiplayer experience, indicating that they're "looking into" a solution to allow PC and PS4 players to group up in parties instead of only being randomly matched together.

What is Rocket League? Well, it's the sequel to 2008's Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. That doesn't help? Well, okay, think about it this way: It takes a number of qualities from popular sports, subtracts the human athletes, and adds hard hitting, high-flying super cars and a giant, glowing metal ball. The cars slam into each other like football linebackers. Players launch their vehicles up as high as possible to try to knock the ball their way, like a center in a basketball tip-off. There's everything from Australian Rules Football to Polo here.

But more than anything, Rocket League reminds me of all the stuff that I love from soccer: The beautiful cross pass from the side of the field towards a perfectly positioned striker; the way the ball is never really "held," by any player, always bouncing around with a mind of its own; That time when... The score is 2-2 and there is very little time left in the match. The ball hangs in the air above a group of players, and for a moment there is a possibility that anything might happen, and then a body--in this case, a massive truck--moves in a way that a body could not possibly move. No, No way. I do not believe it. And the ball is in the air and then all at once it is in the back of the goal. And in Rocket League the ball explodes into color and flings all of the vehicles nearby away from the goal in a concussive celebration.

It's just... listen, it's pretty fucking good.

And it breaks my heart that I've only been able to play it for a couple of hours with other players. Because while the game does have competent AI players in its offline modes, they don't really replicate the ways humans play. In my multiplayer matches last night, I saw players hesitate when AI would calmly take the shot. I saw a special sort of camaraderie from a teammate who, at the end of a match they'd dominated, very clearly swerved away from an easy goal so that I could take the shot and get the score instead. And I saw one player spend an entire match trying to perfect a technique by which they launch their car into the air before angling downwards and rocket-boosting a dive kick style attack on the ball. That's the sort of nonsense only humans players devote themselves to.

So hey, Psyonix, good luck getting this thing fixed.

Everyone else, I'll see you on the field.