Rocket League might just be the perfect video game. More specifically, Rocket League’s classic 3v3 mode might just be the perfect video game. While the wider experience is filled with annoying monetisation and unnecessary game modes, that core idea is so simple, yet superlatively effective. What if football, but cars?
That’s soccer, for you American scoundrels.
After a decade of enjoying the spotlight as the only arcade-style car-football simulator, last month Rocket League got its first real competitor: Rematch. It ditched the cars, yes, but that’s not the point. Why has it taken this long for other developers to take Rocket League’s core idea and apply it with different themes or to different sports?
Rocket League Without The Rockets
Rematch is fundamentally a Rocket League-like. There are no cars or aerials, but it’s an arcade football game (I’m not going to call it soccer) where teammates have to work together in order to navigate the pitch and score goals. It’s easy to learn but difficult to master. There’s quick chats to communicate, and the ball never goes out for a throw-in or corner kick. Sloclap switched the rims and decals for tattoos and kits, but the two games are clearly in the same genre.
Rocket League’s core idea was actually born from a much earlier game by the same developer in the form of Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. It was a digital indie release for the PS3 way back in 2008.
I’m astounded that it’s taken this long for another developer to follow this formula. I know Rocket League has experimented with basketball modes and suchlike, but why has nobody tried to make truck rugby or treeman ping pong? Actually, I’m going to start writing these down…
The Rocket League formula is simple: take a hugely popular sport and give it a makeover. Ensure your game is fun, accessible, and endlessly replayable. Profit. The biggest problem stopping other developers from getting on the train at this stop? Making a game like that is more difficult than you might think.
Rocket League Has The Secret Sauce
Do you understand how difficult it is to make a game that players don’t get bored of?
That they will queue for hours in, playing again and again and again to play against others? Your mechanics have to be perfect. Your servers enormous and immune to strain. Your monetisation must be engaging but not overbearing. And you have to capture those players’ attention when everything else is trying to draw them away.
I’m not just talking about other games. Sure, some Rocket League players have probably migrated to Fortnite, but others have quit matches to watch a movie, to scroll social media, or something else entirely. You’re not just competing against your competitors; you’re competing against the entirety of human knowledge stuffed into every single player’s pocket.
Rocket League has one thing going for it in this regard: its uniqueness. There’s nothing else like Rocket League. Football fans burned out on FIFA? Rocket League. Racing fans bored of driving in circles with just a finish line as a reward? Rocket League. Anyone else just wanting a fix of casual PvP play in a game you can pick up in minutes? Rocket. League.
Until Rematch was released, nothing else fulfilled this niche. You understand the mechanics of Rocket League by the end of your first match. Then you see opponents doing quadruple backflips or keepy-uppies with the ball to cross the entire pitch in mid-air. You try to learn. You fail. You try and try again. Eventually, you’ve mastered the Musty Flick. But there’s always something else that catches your eye, a way to improve, a path to ranking up one more time.
Rocket League has the perfect gameplay loop. I have no idea how the developers managed to create a game that’s so mechanically solid that it’s simple for anyone to pick up, but also has so much room for skill expression. The skill ceiling in this game is so high, you can see clouds forming in the room. And yet, if you’ve never played a video game in your life, you could figure out the basics in a few minutes.
I reiterate that Rocket League might be the perfect video game, the beautiful distillation of a core mechanic so simple, yet so complex. Some may question why I want to iterate on perfection. The answer is simple: because it’s fun. Rocket League is fun. Rematch is fun. Trying new things is fun. We could be having more fun. Instead, we’re getting yet another bland Assassin’s Creed game because some big boss thinks it’ll make the numbers go up.
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