Rocket League's season numbering got reset following its free-to-play transition, so the five-year-old game has been in season 1 for the past few months. Season 2 is on the horizon now—it starts December 9—and it's all about music.
The new season will mark the start of a new Rocket Pass, and bring with it season 1 rewards and a competitive ranking reset, a new arena called Neon Fields, new music tracks from Kaskade (the song in the trailer above is Flip Reset), and a new feature: player anthems.
Psyonix hasn't gone into detail on player anthems yet—we'll learn more tomorrow—but it's a simple enough concept: "Soon, you'll be able to tap into Rocket League's ever-growing soundtrack and play your favorite music in the Arena when you score a goal with this new customization option," says the developer.
In other words, you'll be able to pick a song to go with your goal explosion.
A brief tangent: The NHL's San Jose Sharks let players choose their own goal songs last season, and the results were not spectacular. It ruled that center Tomáš Hertl picked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song—everything Hertl does is great and everyone loves him—but the other song choices made for lousy celebration themes. Brent Burns picked The Git Up. Terrible goal song. Marcus Sorenson took Mamma Mia. Also terrible. Stefan Noesen went with Hakuna Matata. Bad. I'm not saying I hate these songs, but they just don't work when preceded by a fog horn and cheering. I'm sure that's exactly why they were chosen, but I get enough irony poisoning online as it is—I just want to be happy that the puck went in the net with some generic sports celebration music ("hey! hey! hey!" and so on) like I always have, but I suppose that's just the kind of nostalgic resistance to change I'd have scoffed at when I was younger.
To get back on topic, I'm sure the player anthem concept will work better in a videogame about rocket-powered cars. Probably.
Also coming sometime during Rocket League season 2 is the return of Rocket Labs, which are experimental casual playlists—expect odd mutator combos and non-standard arenas. According to Psyonix, one Rocket Labs playlist will involve a new arena that's a throwback to Rocket League's predecessor, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars. Look for that sometime mid-season.
You can read more about Rocket League season 2 here. I'll leave you with a couple more observations:
1. Psyonix has actually kept season 1 to its planned length rather than extending it to four or five months, so the current Rocket Pass might be the first one I don't finish. Guess we should expect things to be on schedule from here on.
2. Is the DJ character in the trailer the first human we've seen in the Rocket League universe, which until now has only been cars and eggs? (Update: No, I am told, she's in the background of Neo Tokyo. Still weird that everyone's an egg except her, though, isn't it?)
