Is Rocket League Worth Playing in 2026?
Thanks to Jynxzi Rocket League has reached a new max player count since its launch in 2015. Is it worth giving a second chance?
For the unaware, recently Rocket League reached a new all time high player count; passing it’s previous record after going free to play.
This is wild news because as a long time Rocket League fan I’ve watched the game remain mostly static for the majority of its life cycle. It’s kept it’s brand alive by attaching itself to Fortnite, and selling stickers to any major brand willing to toss a few dollars it’s way.
There has been some speculation as to the source of the resurgence, but the elephant in the room is Jynxzi. Jynxzi is one of the biggest online content creators in the world who was previously known for Rainbow Six Siege. Recently for whatever reason he’s been hooked on the long time digital soccer successor.
I do mean for whatever reason because it seems he actually just picked it up.
Thus begging the question:
Is Rocket League Worth Playing in 2026?
The answer is less cut and dry than other games. Depending on your particular background with the game the answer differs.
Usually these types of articles are lead by:
OOH NEW UPDATE
COMPLETE GAME OVERHAUL
Some other third thing
What’s fascinating is that none of these are the case.
Why Should you Listen to Me?
What you might not expect about me is that I’ve been a long time Rocket League player and fan. I found out about the game pre-launch and fell in love at first sight. I played the alpha, beta, and day one.
I kept on playing through the years, hit Grand Champion a few times, and go through phases of playing on and off. It’s one of the few games that has me actively swearing at myself for mistakes.
What is Rocket League
Call it reductionist, but Rocket League (to me) is known for it’s commitment to staying completely unchanged. I do mean completely. Unlike it’s sister game Fortnite, new game modes, stories, and events do not happen. It had some new game modes in the first couple years, and a couple experimental ones after its free to play launch, but those are the exception and remain as non-serious side modes (except for hoops arguably).
See, for example, the first video I ever saw about Rocket League:
As a long time fan I’ve loved watching competitive flourish, but also accepted watching the casual game languish on life support. Rocket League’s commitment to consistency caused it to struggle with player retention, and such was its fate. Unlike it’s competitive peers it would fail to pull in a gen z or alpha audience who it needed to act as life-blood for the games relevance.
Why Now?
At the bottom of a dusty box covered in random hats, cars, and cosmetics is a fantastic game. Rocket League has always been a fantastic game, and the lack of change reinforces the idea that any alteration would have been detrimental.
All Rocket League needed was for someone to pull it out of that old dusty box and brush it off. That’s exactly what Jynxzi did.
Should you Play it?
Have you Played it Before?
What you have to understand is that Rocket League has not and will not change. If you played Rocket League before it is still the same game (the exact same). Maybe a resurgence in players is enough to re-ignite some interest left inside you, but don’t expect anything new.
If the game is totally new to you: you have thousands of hours of gameplay at your fingertips just waiting for your mastery.
Why Rocket League is so Good (and so Hard)?
The thing you have to understand is that Rocket League is what I like to call “The Great Equalizer.” There is not a single other game that plays like it. All of your gaming skills need to be completely retrained from scratch to have a shot of being effective in a game.
Rocket League is the closest to any actual real life sport any e-sport has ever come. Many games are made up of fixed, developer created, interactions and binary states.
Think of games like FIFA. You have the ball or you don’t. You do a trick shot because a developer programmed it into the game, animated it, and wrote a button combo for it. Real soccer is not like that. FIFA is a skill fantasy designed to make you feel good. Rocket league is a real sport which requires thousands of hours of practice to feel better than a toddler. There is no power fantasy here.
You can hear my (mental) scream in this video.
The flip side to this token is that the skill ceiling is massive. Unlike in American Football where the person catching the ball has to be registered with the DMV months in advance, everything in Rocket League is fluid. Even the concept of ball control is nebulous and highly dependent on the skill of the individual players.
Pro players are people who have spent so much time practicing the game that it seems like they control the physics, rather than the other way around. The developers have no say in how good these players can be or what they can do as long as it fits within the walls of the stadium.
Conclusion
It’s worth giving it a few hours if you haven’t already. Perhaps a few new players is a good enough reason to try the game. Though Rocket League’s difficulty is enough to push away a lot of early players, anyone who sticks around is going to find something very addicting that you can put thousands of hours in. Just don’t expect the game to change… at all.
That’s all from me this week. I hope you enjoyed it.
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