Rocket League is obviously meant to be a version of soccer played with rocket-powered battle cars, but it's always felt more like hockey to me. You've got the battles in the corners and along the boards, clearing, checking, and momentum to consider—and that's not lost on Psyonix, because soon the dev is going to add a puck.
Rocket League is getting mutators, and it starts in November with stuff like a low gravity 'Moonball' mutator and the 'Cubic' mutator, which was apparently a favorite in the original game, and turns the ball into a cube. I'm not sure what 'Time Warp' does, but I'm on board. There'll also be a new playlist that cycles these modes, called Mutator Mashup, according to the press release.
As much as I love the basic, competitive version of Rocket League, something more whimsical (more whimsical than cars playing soccer, yes) sounds like a wonderful, less competitive way to kill a couple hours making cars do unlikely things. I'm excited.
But as a hockey fan, I'm most excited for December, which is when we'll get the hockey mutator. From the looks of it, hockey mode turns the field to ice and the ball into a giant, ridiculous-looking puck. I was sort of hoping it would further emulate hockey by adding space behind the goal, but that'd probably be a bit much (and possibly entirely unfun). I'm not so sure about the puck, actually. Trying to steer that biscuit looks onerous, as if it outweighs the cars and is more likely to smash them than go anywhere. But we'll see! It might be fun to have new bounces to learn, and to deal with a puck's endearing habit of spinning and flipping and generally being a pain in the ass to put in a goal.
The mutator update will be free. There's no word on the exact date of either release, but we might find out on Thursday, when Psyonix will be livestreaming a demonstration.
