20 Things You Didn't Know About Rocket League

The multiplayer game of the generation turns 5.

By Jack Pooley /

Rocket League is, without even a hint of exaggeration or hyperbole, one of the greatest video games of the current generation - if not all time. A solid gold masterpiece, to be sure.

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Originally released for PlayStation 4 on July 7, 2015, the car-football game became an immediate phenomenon with players who couldn't get enough of its beautifully simple yet ludicrously addictive gameplay loop.

Five years on, Rocket League is as popular as it ever has been, a spectacular monument to what a small team of passionate developers can create when they get the fundamentals right and show total respect for their player-base.

Yet as much a well-oiled machine as Rocket League undeniably is, its development wasn't an entirely smooth process, and the slick end product was the result of considerable toil and tinkering on the part of Psyonix.

So, if you're able to put the controller down for a few minutes and take a well-earned break, these are the tidbits, anecdotes, and essential backstories behind the greatest sports video game of all time. There, we said it...

20. It's A Sequel To Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars

As much as Rocket League might seem like a totally unique and unprecedented phenomenon, the game was actually developed as a spiritual sequel of-sorts to Psyonix's 2008 PS3 game Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars.

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The game, basically a proto-Rocket League, received wildly mixed reviews from critics and, partly due to Psyonix's inability to market it to a wider audience, it also tanked commercially despite earning a small cult of fandom.

As a result, the team spent a few years doing contract work for other games - such as Mass Effect 3 and Gears of War - as well as developing their own mobile space combat game, ARC Squadron.

It wasn't until 2013 that development began on what would eventually become Rocket League.

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