Epic Games acquires Psyonix, Rocket League’s future on Steam called into question

Psyonix grew into a very successful studio thanks to the release of Rocket League several years ago. In fact, the game is so successful that it might be easy to forget that Psyonix is actually an independent studio. That won't be the case for much longer though, as Epic Games has announced plans to acquire Psyonix.

The announcement was made last night, with Psyonix stating that it will be “joining the Epic Games family”. As part of an FAQ, the studio made it clear that this means that Rocket League will be available on the Epic Games Store later this year, but support for the game on Steam will remain. Psyonix hasn't explicitly said that Rocket League will be removed from purchase on Steam after the game lands on the Epic Games Store, but many seem to believe that this will be the case.

Speaking on the matter, Psyonix explains: “In the short term, nothing will change at all! We’re still committed to providing Rocket League with frequent updates that have new features, new content, and new ways to play the game for as long as you’ll have us. In the long-term, we expect to bring Rocket League to the Epic Games store and to leverage our new relationship to grow the game in ways we couldn’t do on our own before. We believe that bringing Rocket League to new audiences with more support is a win for everybody.”

Gameplay will generally stay the same but thanks to this acquisition, there will be more resources available to invest in Rocket League's competitive esports scene.

While there have been reports claiming that Rocket League will be removed from Steam at the end of this year, Psyonix says that “Rocket League is and remains available on Steam” and that anyone who owns the game on Steam can “still play it and look forward to continued support”. Whether or not ‘continued support' means that it will still be available for purchase remains to be seen. Everyone involved is being quite vague on that front, likely in order to avoid the backlash so many other games have faced after signing up for Epic Games Store exclusivity.

Trying to avoid backlash isn't necessarily working though, as Rocket League is now being ‘review bombed' on the Steam store page, with well over 1,000 negative reviews coming in the last 12 hours.

KitGuru Says: Rocket League has such a huge audience on Steam and at this point, the game has been out for so long that retroactively making it an exclusive seems silly. There is still a chance that the game won't suddenly be unavailable to purchase through Steam, but getting proper confirmation one way or the other is proving to be difficult.

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