Because the breakout indie recreation turns ten, its creators opted to have fun in suitably elaborate vogue. With 15,000 screaming followers gathered in Paris’ La Défense Enviornment, 2026’s second Rocket League Main match culminated in a real shock – a teaser trailer for the long-awaited sequel.
A 35-second video confirmed that Rocket League 2 would be the first-ever Unreal Engine 6 recreation, giving followers a glimpse at newly shiny vehicles tearing up a glistening, inexperienced soccer pitch. Exterior of the brand new engine, nevertheless, particulars on the sequel stay shrouded in thriller. So, in a bid to see what the subsequent ten years of Rocket League maintain, VGC spoke to the sport’s creators, a professional participant, and veteran shoutcasters concerning the actuality of – and the group’s hopes for – Rocket League 2.
Initially made by a scrappy workforce of fifty folks and launched to little fanfare, Rocket League has since been bought to Epic Video games – turning into the corporate’s second largest title behind Fortnite. In January 2026, Rocket League (as soon as once more) surpassed over a million concurrent gamers, comfortably cementing Rocket League as one of many largest esports round.
It’s a sight that’s all too plain to see as I roam the La Protection area on a Friday afternoon. Regardless of being a college day, as the primary match rolls round at 3pm, many of the seats are already taken. Gathered right here for Rocket League’s 2026’s second ‘Main’ match, tens of hundreds of followers watch 16 groups from seven completely different areas flipping and revving their means in direction of a prize pool of over $350,000, all hoping to make it to September’s World Championships.
Because of the success of homegrown groups like Karmine Corp and Workforce Vitality, French followers have proven up in full power, bringing drums, portray their faces, and erupting right into a sea of cheers as their heroes go head-to-head. Because the beers proceed to movement and the group’s anticipation rises to an audible hum, it’s an impressively vigorous environment for an esports match – a world away from what you’d discover at Pokemon’s World Championships and even excessive stake Name of Obligation tournaments.
“The sport with its overtimes and its sharp five-minute matches simply creates quite a lot of vitality,” says Cliff Shoemaker, Rocket League’s aggressive director. A former ESPN programming supervisor, Shoemaker constructed a profession championing esports contained in the information group, slowly convincing his NFL-loving colleagues to offer esports a shot.
In the present day he tells me that this fervorous French crowd exudes the sort of electrical environment he’d at all times hoped for from an esport. “There’s a motive we proceed to be in Europe lots,” he says, “European crowds are unbelievable, they’re energetic, they’re loud, they chant, they sing – it’s similar to a soccer match – which is sort of uncommon in esports.”
Regardless of all of the seen love for Rocket League’s forward-flipping vehicles within the area, for a lot of followers, the announcement of Rocket League 2 couldn’t come quickly sufficient. “It’s been a very long time coming,” British Rocket League professional participant ‘ApparentlyJack’ Benton says. “We’ve been fairly impatient as followers, however I’m pleased with what I’ve seen to date. I’m actually hoping to see a inventive mode the place you may make your personal maps very simply [too]… extra accessibility – so everybody can play – and higher onboarding to assist folks get into the sport just a little bit simpler.”
“I’m actually hoping to see a inventive mode the place you may make your personal maps very simply [too]… extra accessibility – so everybody can play – and higher onboarding to assist folks get into the sport just a little bit simpler.”
Irrespective of who I converse to, the requests for the sequel from each gamers and followers are surprisingly modest. “I’d prefer to see them altering the arenas every now and then, so we have now extra arenas once more,” Davide Kant, German streamer and shoutcaster, tells me, “alongside making the sport much more skill-based. It’d be nice to have the ability to select which facet you spawn from… and even so as to add a lift on the ceiling. Stuff like this is able to go down very nicely.”
For Mauricio Longoni, senior recreation developer on Rocket League, one of many largest inspirations for brand new mechanics has truly come from high-level methods found by gamers. “We work with our gamers and study from them. The sport has advanced lots already within the final ten years, proper? There are mechanics that [players have] found, after which we made them official mechanics. They may preserve discovering these items… and we’ll preserve evolving in that path”.
Regardless of the modifications that many followers are clamoring for, German shoutcaster Brass believes that Epic’s sequel shouldn’t begin too removed from the mechanics that make Rocket League so in style. “I feel that crucial factor is that Rocket League stays true to its DNA, “ says Brass, “lots of people are screaming for giant modifications, and I get that – you’re feeling like the sport is getting stale and then you definitely’re evaluating it to different aggressive video games, like League of Legends, that are having these main shifts. But I really feel like you shouldn’t simply utterly change up the sport.”
Fortunately for followers, it appears Pysonix agrees. “Identical to you don’t change the mass of a basketball, we don’t need to change what makes the sport so aggressive, “ says Longoni, “that’s the particular factor about Rocket League – It relies upon solely on the physics and in your skill to affect the physics – similar to kicking a soccer ball across the discipline.”
One change, nevertheless, can’t come quickly sufficient. Because of its new inflow of gamers, Rocket League has not too long ago discovered itself stricken by cheaters. Whereas Epic tells me it’s been rolling out updates to deal with this drawback, Brass is hopeful that the brand new engine will assist degree the enjoying discipline.
“I feel that [ the new game] may have higher choices for anti-cheat.” Says Brass. “That is what has been driving the group loopy for the final couple of months. Unreal Engine six [will also] be an engine that builders truly know easy methods to deal with, so we don’t want any legacy builders for Unreal Engine three – [an engine] that nobody else makes use of anymore.”
“Identical to you don’t change the mass of a basketball, we don’t need to change what makes the sport so aggressive. That’s the particular factor about Rocket League”
Regardless of its UE3 origins, Rocket League endures due to its profitable marriage of spectacle and ease. The place watching League of Legends or Starcraft might be baffling to the uninitiated, Rocket League’s 4 v4 showdowns are simply as readable as watching the World Cup. “Rocket League could be very straightforward to know…” says Benton, “Anybody can get entangled. My grandma watches me, and he or she’s over 80 years outdated.”
It helps that the extent of manufacturing in Paris is vastly spectacular. Boasting an Unreal Engine-powered gentle present, smoke, and lasers, and a suitably futuristic-looking stage, Rocket League creates a spectacle that offers conventional sports activities a run for his or her cash.
It’s additionally a blast to look at. As expert gamers preserve the ball flying by the air and 4×4 vans soar gracefully throughout the ceiling, these monstrous motors look impressively nimble. “I feel we’ve recognized that if we will get folks to hit an aerial, or do some kind of non-traditional aim, then you will get them hooked,” explains Shoemaker, on getting new gamers to stay with the sport. “For the time being we have to work on the onboarding for this recreation and future video games. When you can nail that and get them to that first second the place they’ve that have, it’s like nothing else.”
With a 1.2 million greenback prize pool introduced for September’s Rocket League’s World Championships, it’s little shock that registrations for these competitions are up 24% 12 months on 12 months. “I feel this development is occurring as a result of Rocket League has now established itself as a type of sport,” says Longoni. “It’s not a simulation of soccer, it’s not a simulation of an current bodily sport, Rocket League is its personal factor created from the bottom as much as be a very aggressive sport.”
Nonetheless, as Blizzard’s disastrous Overwatch 2 proved, there isn’t any assure {that a} sequel to an esports phenomenon will routinely be a success – a lesson that Epic appears all too keenly conscious of. “We now have to be actually good about it – we’re not going to hurry e-sports”, says Shoemaker. “We’re not simply going to right away go to Rocket League Championships [with the sequel], we have now to offer gamers tons of time to get there.”
As over 500,000 followers tuned into these Paris Majors dwell, Rocket League finds itself slowly catching as much as the multi-million Viewership figures of League of Legends, Counter Strike 2, and Valorant. These three juggernauts apart, for many esports, half 1,000,000 viewers could be the height of their reputation.
But because the growing older 2016 recreation continues to defy expectations – and with a sequel simply across the nook – Shoemaker believes Rocket League’s ascension has solely simply begun. “I’m proud that we’ve created an open ecosystem the place folks really feel like they’ve an actual probability to compete at a excessive degree,” says Shoemaker.
“Now that we’re going into the longer term with a brand new engine…it’s going to open up quite a lot of actually attention-grabbing alternatives. We’ve already locked in some cool stuff that may be certain that ‘27 isn’t only a cookie-cutter repeat of ‘26… it’ll be a problem, however the workforce is nicely outfitted to entertain of us on-line and in individual with this recreation and [the sequel].”
