Rocket League's gameplay is largely the same as that of its predecessor, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. Players control a rocket-powered car and use it to hit a ball that is much larger than the cars towards the other team's goal area to score goals, in a way that resembles indoor soccer, with elements reminiscent of a demolition derby.[1][2] Players' cars have the ability to jump to hit the ball while in mid-air. Updates in 2024 introduced new features that allow players to view the remaining boost amount of their teammates, and how much time was remaining on the game clock when specific comments were made in the chat.[3]
Matches are usually five minutes long, with a sudden death overtime if the game is tied at that point.[4] Matches can be played from between one-on-one up to four-on-four players, as well as in casual and ranked playlists.[5] The latter serves as Rocket League's competitive online mode, where players compete in various tiered ranks within game seasons, with victories or losses raising or lowering a player's rank, respectively.[6] The game includes a single-player Season mode, with the player competing with computer-controlled players. An update in December 2016 introduced Custom Training sequences that can be created by players and shared with others on the same platform. Players are able to specify the ball's path and the presence and skill of opponents on the field, which enables them to practice specific shots or maneuvers.[7]
A few months after it was released, Psyonix released an update that added game modes known as mutators, modifying some aspects of gameplay, such as increased or decreased gravity, ball size, ball speed and bounciness.[8] For the 2015 holiday season, another update replaced mutator matches with an ice hockey-inspired mode (called Snow Day), played on an ice rink and the ball replaced with a hockey puck with different physics.[9] Positive reception to the ice hockey mode led to it being extended for a few weeks after the holiday season. Snow Day was permanently added to the mutator settings for private matches and exhibition games on February 10, 2016.[10][11] Hoops, a game mode based on basketball,[12][13][14] was added on April 25, 2016.[15] A separate Rumble mode, which incorporates unusual power-ups, such as the ability to freeze the ball in place or cause a single opponent to have difficulty controlling their car, was added on September 8, 2016.[16] An update in December 2016, known as Starbase ARC and based on Psyonix' mobile game ARC Squadron,[17] added support for custom arenas for Windows players supported through Steam Workshop, along with other new content.[18] In celebration of Super Bowl LV in February 2021, Psyonix released a limited time gamemode called Gridiron, which functions similar to gridiron football with the normal soccer ball being replaced by a football.[19]
