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Psyonix, creator of Rocket League is joining Epic Games (updated)

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Epic Games don't seem to be just doing exclusives now, they're also pulling in studios with Psyonix (Rocket League) announcing today they're joining Epic Games. Yes, really.

It hasn't been completely confirmed just yet though, as they're waiting on "customary closing conditions", the usual legal stuff all things like this need to go through basically.

In the announcement post on their official site they said "Today is a big day for us here at Psyonix because, just as the headline says, we’re officially joining the Epic Games family.". Going into further detail, they said in the short term nothing will change but they do expect to release on the Epic Store and this will allow them to "leverage our new relationship to grow the game in ways we couldn’t do on our own before".

As a massive fan of Rocket League, being my current favourite and most played game in the last year this news has come as a little bit of a shock. For a number of reasons, for one Epic Games don't really care much about Linux and the Epic Store has no current plans to come to Linux. Not just that, we should take into account the reports about how awful it actually sounds to work for Epic Games with one person saying "It’s killing people" which really does make you think. It also puts Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney's comments across Twitter and various interviews, about how they're trying to change the PC gaming industry and make it better, into a rather different light.

The good news is that since Rocket League is well established on Steam, there should be no chance of it suddenly vanishing as that would be truly ridiculous. It means they also have access to a lot more resources, so hopefully Rocket League will continue to do well.

Update: Well, this could be a problem. According to The Verge, it will be removed from Steam. The press release they received said "The PC version of Rocket League will come to the Epic Games store in late 2019. In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers,"—it's not entirely clear if that actually means it will be removed, so I've reached out for full confirmation but the wording really doesn't sound good.

Update #2: When asked on Twitter, the official Rocket League account told us "Hey there! More information will be shared in the future. Please check out our post about this on the Rocket League website: link" which of course wasn't helpful at all. Epic Games did not reply to my email as of yet, but they did send statements to other publications like USgamer where they said "We are continuing to sell Rocket League on Steam, and have not announced plans to stop selling the game there." and also "Rocket League remains available for new purchasers on Steam, and long-term plans will be announced in the future.".

So they aren't announcing plans to remove it from Steam, despite what early reports said but they're also being clear that they do have a long-term plan of which they're not talking about. That's one way to both clarify it and keep it ambiguous in case they do remove it from Steam. However, by long-term plans they might mean some sort of free to play release, supported by an expanded Rocket Pass, it could mean anything.

Update #3: Psyonix also added this additional note to their own announcement which reads "Editor’s Note: We wanted to clarify something for you after today’s news: Rocket League is and remains available on Steam. Anyone who owns Rocket League through Steam can still play it and can look forward to continued support. Thanks!".

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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85 comments
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sprite_1ww May 1, 2019
Oh... oh no.
kuhpunkt May 1, 2019
Good luck with the Crunch.
TheSyldat May 1, 2019
Well I just tweeted you about the article from The Verge seems like I was not the only one , thanks for doing the fact checking because throwing that rumor on the other hand scares me up a bit.

I'm already worried that them joining the Epic Store will mean them migrating Rocket League to UE4 , and let's face it UE4 on Linux has real bad performance it chugs like a motherfucker ...
Ehvis May 1, 2019
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Must have been Epic money at work.

Because while they can remove it from the store, the still have to maintain the game for current owners. So it just means more work.
qptain Nemo May 1, 2019
Could you reach out to Epic and Psyonix for a confirmation of continued Linux support?
Liam Dawe May 1, 2019
Quoting: qptain NemoCould you reach out to Epic and Psyonix for a confirmation of continued Linux support?
Way ahead of you.
Linas May 1, 2019
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It's almost like Epic are trying to undo everything Valve has done for us. Hope they run out of money before any significant damage is done.
pb May 1, 2019
Looking forward to some fortnight antennae and caps. ;-)


Last edited by pb on 1 May 2019 at 8:19 pm UTC
manokara May 1, 2019
Well, Psyonix and Epic have come a long away since UT days according to The Verge's article, makes sense for them to become a first-party developer. I just hope Steam customers continue to receive updates after the game is removed from the store.

Also, there's a chance they could port it to UE4 and apparently that's not a good thing, because it runs poorly on Linux.


Last edited by manokara on 1 May 2019 at 8:23 pm UTC
sprite_1ww May 1, 2019
Quoting: qptain NemoCould you reach out to Epic and Psyonix for a confirmation of continued Linux support?

I highly doubt they'd pull support for Linux. That would cause an absolute shitstorm. If anything, future Psyonix projects would be the ones affected. If for example they decided to make a Rocket League 2 for whatever reason.
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