Epic Games developer Psyonix has published a sneak peek at an updated version of Rocket League running in Unreal Engine 6, revealing a first look at its new logo.
Not feeling the hype. What exactly does 6 offer over 5? Or even 4, for that matter?
Well 6 is probably stable in comparison to 5. Devs have been complaining about UE5 for a while.
Supposedly UE6 will kind of be UE5 but with better optimization for multi threading.
And to my great concern it should be much more connected to UEFN and all the fortnite universe…
So…no Skaarj warriors then?
Why? But really, why?
Is the question why is it moving engine? Where’s the question why is unreal engine 6 coming out?
Yeah, I am still waiting for unreal 5 to not be a hot physics mess. Guess they are giving up and delivering another half baked engine instead.
I miss the og system of getting a reward each game.
Is this game still as popular? I have not played it since August 2019 when Epic removed it from Steam.
It has seen better days. But, Psyonix shot themselves in the foot by taking exclusivity with Epic and even allowing themselves to be bought out by Epic.
I play every blue moon, but I can’t care anymore since it’s too easy to get banned and Psyonix sucks the cocks of not only Epic Games, but elitist players.
How is it easy to get banned?
Easy, just quit a few casual matches and they’ll escalate the time they’ll bar you from entering any game mode.
That’s how bad. Add in a few words from their arbitrary unknown list of words you can’t say and you’ll find it permanent.
Casual quit punishments are dumb imo but they did make casual games a bit better on average. And you probably only got banned from chat if you said some heinous shit. I’m pretty sure they just chat ban first no?
Anyway it’s super easy not to get banned on rl since the game emphasizes quick chat anyway
I stopped when they kept banning me for quitting a game because it would not connect my friend either.
They never removed it from Steam? I’ve been playing it on there since 2015. If you bought it there, you have it. Even works on Linux with Proton.
Yeah?
Hm…Can’t find it.
Almost as if Psyonix/Epic Games sold out, delisted it from Steam and only keeps updating the build for existing users
Which version of proton? I can start the game and play bots, but the multiplayer is not availble for steam/epic friends. Literally no multiplayer browser loads at all.
EDIT: Jesus. I’m still testing, but it looks like steam installs the defunct “Linux” build of rocket league that has not been updated for 6 years. You need to install the proton version instead by enabling proton experimental in the comparability mode.
Yes. The steam linux build is dated many years ago.
You need heroic launcher to properly play RL on linux.
You can setup a steam shortcut starting it in heroic though.
I have it working without issue just via steam now. Deleting the game and enabling “proton experimental” in the games comparability settings downloaded the modern game. On start, it opened a browser tab and had me link my steam/epic accounts, and bobs your uncle.
I have heroic launcher installed for gog/epic, but its not involved with this. Its good to know there is an alternative install path possible if I need it.
Interesting, I must be misinformed, someone told me it only worked on heroic with the anticheat etc. And that the linux build is “preventing” to get the modern windows build on linux.
I will try again on steam. Also I noticed my controller driver is loaded by steam… So it works only if I have steam up and running anyway.
There is a “steam-devices” linux package I need to look into…
Anyway, thanks for the feedback !
You know what they meant.
I know what Epic did, and I know what they’re referring to, but the game is not gone, it’s just not purchasable. And this person obviously owns it because they were playing before Epic made it free to play. So I don’t know what the issue is for them.
Removed from Steam store so unavailable for purchase. Those who bought it prior will retain access until Epic says fuck you.
Right. If you bought it there you have it there. And the person I replied to obviously bought it there, so it shouldn’t be removed for them. Context, right?
I doubt Epic will remove it from Steam though. That’ll be the day they really kill their user base.
Right, I meant that they mentioned removal as in removed from the store and not their library.
They wouldn’t outright remove it but they did stop updating the linux version on steam. With the news of UE6 update, there is a chance they would either do a makeover like CSGO or simply make a new page for RL 2 which will be only available on their store.
The death of player trading was the last straw for me and haven’t played it since then. I might try it if the UE6 update comes to steam but I don’t have a lot of faith in those epic fucks.
Also do you need epic games account to play? I remember some sort of linking but can’t recall if it was mandatory.
It needs an Epic account for online play, right?
Granted, yes. But after you hook that up, you basically don’t have to touch Epic again. No re-logins ever required. 👍
Idk dude I’m still playing it on steam pretty regularly? Ive got some weird auto-generated username which I guess comes from an epic account made for me but I never had to do anything it just works fine
It’s still decently popular with an active esports scene. It had a resurgence just a couple months ago when some big variety streamers like Jynxzi and critikal played it.
If you bought the game on Steam before it was removed, you can still play it through Steam (it’s what I do)
But you need Epic account to play it, right?
I don’t think so? Or… maybe that was always the case? Idk, I picked the game back up a few months ago after not having played it since 2017 and I don’t remember needing to login. I even still had my cosmetic purchases from 2016
EDIT: actually now that I think about it, I do also have the Epic launcher installed, so maybe it was picked up through that
They could’ve done something about smurfs, griefing, or the terrible chat filter. Instead Psyonix brings updates that nobody asked for.
EAC has cut down bot usage, at least it seems that way to me. Engine update has been a community want for a while.
They abandoned steam for a payout from Epic, at this point it’s expected that there’s incentive to promote their partner / owner.
People have been asking for an engine update for quite a while. There are certainly more pressing issues, like the ones you highlighted, but UE5 has been a request since Psyonix still had a soul.
good thing they are getting 6 instead, but I guess 5 was not very stable so who knows maybe a good call.
When the fuck did Unreal get a 6th engine iteration? 🤨
Apparently this was the UE6 announcement as well.
So why the title is not UE6 revealed and it’s (who the hell cares) Rocket League will get UE6 upgrade…
Because it was announced right in the middle of an e-sport event for Rocket League.
So the reporting is accurate here. Epic just decided Rocket League would be the technology preview for their new engine.
Supposedly, Rocket League had around 6 to 8 millions daily players in mid 2025.
So a lot of people care about RL and also UE6 too obviously.
Because Rocket League > UE6
I can’t really see how Rocket League needs this. The game already looks good enough and runs smooth as butter on most systems. Do I really bother to look at individual blades of grass and scratches on the side of my car when I’m charging at breakneck speed towards the opponents’ goal?
I don’t know what they did, but in the last year that ‘smooth as butter’ turned to randomly lagging and frame spike.s
They probably rewrote it in verse
Haven’t had time to pay it for a while, so I hadn’t noticed. Fair points coming from all directions here, so I stand corrected.
UE3 is already 22 years old. It has been end-of-life for 11 years.
As someone with 4500+ hours into this game, its time to move on from UE3.
Is it not UE4 ?
No, Rocket League runs on UE3.
Wow, didn’t think that could be right. That’s ancient
From what I understand, it’s a nightmare to develop in. And it shows, because Psyonix will release update after update, year after year, and every single fucking time, there will be a new bug in something that isn’t remotely relevant to the release notes.
It’s gotta be spaghetti all the way down, I imagine.
On PC, this would enable modders and map builders with more tools. Plus UE4 is EOL and afaik won’t be receiving updates, while the game will.
Rocket League supported modders and mappers before, even having Steam Workshop support. Since Epic got involved, they’ve only cut down on mod/map support.
Rocket League uses UE3, so even older.
Is UE5 still being maintained? If not, I can imagine that it’s easier for the team to migrate to UE6 than to keep it UE5 running. Just trying to find a reasonable explanation.
Rocket League uses Unreal Engine 3, not UE5.
No, but some like it.
You can always turn down the settings, if you dont care.
The problem with UE5 is you get very weird graphics on low settings. I hope they fixed that in 6
Nanite, Lumen… Both flagship UE5 features, IMO, haven’t realized the potential (we’ve been sold by Epic), stutter struggle plagues UE5 titles.
The Witcher 4 is supposed to collaborate and stretch UE5’s legs in Open World and (sigh) foliage rendering (!!!).
And instead of fixing all of that, Epic is working on UE6? Lol, feels bad for all the developers who tried/are trying to make UE5 work.
6 is the same engine as 5 with updates. It’s not like they build the engine from scratch for every major version number bump. UE6 is just UE5 plus a couple of features that UE5 won’t get. So Witcher 4 can be upgraded to UE6 unless they build a custom fork for Witcher 4. But even then they can back port features they need from 6 to their fork. Like how Wuthering Waves is build in UE4 but they back ported some rendering features from UE5 into the engine.
Well, now UE6 seems to be the big new thing so Witcher 4 can suck it I guess.
Whether they call it Unreal Engine 5.9 or 6 doesn’t really matter in regards to fixing UE’s issues. At some point they’ll make the version jump.
That’s not to say they’ll definitely fix the issues in UE 6 though. I guess we’ll see.
Epic doesn’t think its a problem. Epic treats bad performance in UE5 like Nintendo treats JoyCon drift. Except in this case, a lot of performance problems in UE5 come from dveelopers not changing the default values of a lot of technologies, or being lazy and using technologies they dont need to use but they are the default or are easier to use than the technology that is a better fit for their use case. Epic causes a lot of it throught their implementation in the engine, but developers absolutely could be doing more to mitigate it.
Like, sure it might be easier to use the handle of a saw to hammer in a nail because it is already in their hand, but if they would just reach over to the toolbox and grab the hammer, its going to be a much better tool for the job.
I find it crazy how UE5 games released early in the engine’s life run way better than UE5 games released in the last 2 years, since the addition of Lumen in things.
Not only that, but every game using Lumen has an extremely weird white pattering effect over anything meant to be reflective, and a general kind of haze over everything else… Turning it off instantly improves performance and makes the game look less ugly. I thought maybe this was just my PC getting old, but I see the same ugly bullshit in PS5 games built on UE5 now, too.
When time is money, you’ll likely be “lazy” with some of your development decisions, too.
I think Epic is moving more and more toward making Unreal Engine a film tool. If you’re spending days pre-rendering elaborate scenes, performance is a non-issue.
This might not be about the game but to ‘sell’ the new version of the engine to other developers/development teams, basically as a tech demo.
I’ve been playing Rocket League for years, just because it’s a good way to hang out with a friend who likes it.
For probably the past year, I’ve been playing it in Linux. But recently, suspiciously at about the same time that they added the anti-cheat software, Rocket League has become barely playable in Linux, at least for me.
I don’t really see the need for either anti-cheat or an engine update. I only anticipate that it will make it run even worse in Linux.
I’ve been running it on Linux for a few years now. The performance is better than Windows.
The anti cheat feature might not matter to you, but at higher ranks it ruins the game to run into bots at every corner.
I just need them to do the “Authenticating” bit much faster. 3 seconds was already way too long to be joining a match, but now with the authentication step it can sometimes be upward of 15 second, which is an eternity in RL play.
Yeah the “authentication” can be super long. Sometimes you are connected to the server and get to see your future team getting wrecked 2v3 while you are authenticating.
Not a big deal since it’s mostly an issue in casual but annoying nonetheless.
I’ll be honest I expected them to fully block linux via the EasyAnticheat but they didn’t. So for now it remains functional but on UE6 and new code they might try to dump the linux support.
I disagree. Why would you not need a anti-cheat in a competitive game. As long as it’s not intrusive it’s fine.
I can still play it perfectly fine with 80+ FPS on Steam Deck.
I haven’t played it in awhile, but it also ran great on my steam deck through heroic
For me, when I load the game, sometimes at the title screen, but more frequently only when I start a competitive game, the entire screen starts flashing black and then back to the game maybe once or twice a second. It often settles down after a minute and stops flashing, but sometimes it starts flashing again or it won’t stop for the entire game. And then, sometimes, the entire screen turns black and stays black and I have to restart the game to get the graphics to return.
Which version of proton are you using?
I always switch back and forth between hotfix and experimental to see if one works better. So basically, I use those two.
Ive had good results with proton-ge and Rocket League.
I tried proton-ge, using proton plus, and I got no flashing screen, even when playing a 1v1 competitive match. Hopefully, it will still work when I play with my friend later.
Thanks for the tip. I think it probably worked.
DUDE glad to hear that! Hope it sticks :)
I occasionally get some weird window positioning issues when I first start the game. Like the game loads full screen, but instead of loading over the taskbar, it moves the window above the taskbar, and cuts off the very top of the window (about as much as the height of the taskbar).
To fix that, i go into settings and just change the resolution to something else, apply, then immediately change it back, and it usually fixes itself. Im guessing this is some bug with dual monitor setups, but in case you run into this, this usually fixes it.
Other than that the game runs great, and i can play at 2560x1440 @ 144hz.
Thanks I’ll give it a shot. Especially because I don’t want this technical problem to ruin this long tradition.
I don’t know man, but my instincts of repairing pcs for the last 30 years tell me its either a graphics driver issue (including stuff like DXVK and MESA), a graphics card issue, or an issue with the PSU - that’s where i would start looking
Can’t wait to see the mandatory “This is what OoT would look like if Nintendo made it in UEx” and a horde of rabid fans take their keyboards and demand that Nintendo both hire the guy and make OoT in UEx. Of course, keeping the extremely clunky animations of the original game.
The animations of the original game were not “clunky,” many of them were actually motion captured which is insane technology for the 90s when Ocarina of Time was in development.
I don’t disagree with your dismay about “modern” remakes of classic games almost universally getting it wrong (and I personally really HATE Nintendo now), but the original Ocarina of Time did not have any “clunky” anything. It was nearly perfect, and still is. It became one of the leading influences on 3D games to this day, in everything from player movement to the camera system. Playing the unofficial PC port only exemplifies this more, as it runs at higher framerates (60+) with interpolated animations. It absolutely competes with modern games still.
Mate, it was a joke about how every time a new unreal engine releases, there’s someone making a “look how OoT kooks in the new unreal engine”. Don’t read too much of that message, it was just a joke.
If they can’t make the game run on UE5 what makes them think they can do it on UE6?
When was Rocket League moved to UE5? Its still on UE3.
How is this inconsistent with my comment?
Your comment doesn’t make sense. They never intended to or put in effort to port it to UE5. There is no relevance of a non-thing towards an actual thing.
?
You can figure it out.
K
Hilarious that people made assumptions about what you meant with this.
If they’ve moved to UE5 since 2015 when I started playing, to now, I have noticed no difference in gameplay. I picked it up after a 4 year hiatus about 3 months ago.
Its still on UE3.
