Rocket League, Psyonix's popular multiplayer videogame that can only be described as car-soccer, is going free to play. Rocket League, which was originally released for Microsoft Windows and PS4 in July 2015 — and eventually, ported to Mac OS, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One — will be free across all playable platforms.

Players who have downloaded the game on their computer via Steam might be confused as to what this means for their copies of the game. According to esports journalist Richard Lewis via a Tweet: "As part of that transition it will no longer be available for download on Steam, although existing Steam accounts will remain working and unchanged."

Rocket League developer Psyonix was acquired by Epic Games at the start of May 2019, and its assimilation of the Epic Games Launcher has seen the company pull games off of Steam before. 

However, making Rocket League free is a smart way to grow the game's playerbase while sidestepping the competition of Steam in one fell swoop. Free to play has gone from a rarely seen perk to the standard of online gaming. Competitive multiplayer online battle arena League of Legends, as well as premiere battle royale Fortnite, have been successful with a free-to-play model by peppering in optional microtransactions, usually in the form of personalizing cosmetics.

Updates to Rocket League will still come through the servers and the game will still be playable for those who own and have downloladed it via Steam, but new players will be able to get the game for free directly from the platform of their choosing. In addition to making the game far more accessible than before, the move to free to play for Rocket League should also smooth over any community negativity leftover from 2019 regarding Epic Games' acquisition of Psyonix.