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After making history by allowing Rocket League to become the first Xbox One game to support cross-play between Xbox One and PC players, Psyonix is back once again with more news about their latest upcoming content update for Rocket League. Coming sometime next month, players will be able to enjoy a brand new map that will be the latest addition to the game’s Rocket Labs playlist, which was made to give players prototype arenas for casual games. Titled Pillars, the map is based around a virtual reality theme, and will focus on players strategically using the walls on the map to their advantage.

The map will feature two large walls that essentially turn the area into a three-lane map. The team over at Psyonix suggests using the walls to not only bank shots, but driving up them to get an aerial advantage on the opposing team. The Pillars map will be available for both online and offline play. In addition to the new map, Psyonix will also be adding an additional 27 quick-chat phrases for players to use during games. Each phrase can be customized to the 4 they would like to quickly access using the d-pad.

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This update will also bring about the end of Rocket League’s Season 2 and will usher in the beginning of Season 3. Psyonix has revealed what players will be rewarded with based upon the highest competitive skill tier they reached. Players will also receive all of awards for tiers lower than their current one in addition to the reward listed for their tier. The rewards for each tier are listed below:

• Prospect I or higher – Season 2 Prospect Rocket Trail
  
  
• Challenger I or higher – Season 2 Challenger Rocket Trail
  
  
• Rising Star or higher – Season 2 Star Rocket Trail
  
  
• Champion or higher – Season 2 Champion Rocket Trail
  
  
• Grand Champion – “Season 2 Grand Champion” Title

With the upcoming new Season, all players will be receiving a skill wipe for all of the game’s competitive playlists. Psyonix is doing this in order to take action after the community expressed concerns about legacy data from previous Seasons negatively affecting the skill curve. Psyonix will also be taking action against players using alternate accounts to match their high skilled account against lower ranking players. Known as “Smurfing” in the Rocket League community, this has been proven to be something that’s very difficult for Psyonix to detect. However, they believe by doing things such as disabling Steam Family Sharing accounts that don’t own a copy of Rocket League from queueing for Competitive playlists, they can help greatly reduce, but not completely eradicate the multi-accounting issue.

After Season 3 launches, there will be a secondary update that will change how parties work with competitive modes. When players get together in a party, each player’s Competitive skill tier will be taken into account and immediately calculated for differences. If the difference between skill tiers is too large, those players will be left unable to queue as a party in any playlists where the skill difference is far too great. Psyonix went into further detail about how the whole thing will work, stating that “if you’re a Rising Star (Tier 9), you could play with a friend in Challenger II (Tier 6), or a friend in Superstar (Tier 12), but you won’t be able to play with both at the same time — as the overall skill difference for that party would be 6 tiers.”

They have recognized the fact that this will prevent some friends from playing with one another, but they also firmly believe that the sacrifice is worth preserving and further solidifying the future of Rocket League's competitive community.

Rocket League is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Pillars
Season 3