Double the frames
As consoles move into the future, so does the beloved soccer-but-with-cars game that’s somehow already five years old. Although Rocket League is old enough to be a kindergartener, it’s still a completely relevant game. In fact, it’s more relevant than ever now that Epic has made it free-to-play. It actually surpassed CS:GO‘s concurrent player record back in September, peaking at somewhere around 1.3 million people online at once.
Psyonix has revealed its next-gen plans for Rocket League. One platform represents an advancement, the other does not.
Players on Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X will have the option to play Rocket League at 120fps, which is a significant improvement over the 60fps mode on Xbox One X and the 30fps cap on the Xbox One S. Here’s the breakdown of next-gen enhancements:
Xbox Series X:
- Quality mode: 4K resolution at 60fps with HDR
- Performance mode: 1512p resolution (70 percent of 4K) at 120fps with HDR
Xbox Series S:
- Quality mode: 1080p resolution at 60fps
- Performance mode: 756p resolution (70 percent of 1080p) at 120fps with HDR
On PlayStation, the PS5 version is the same as the PS4 Pro version. It’ll run at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second. As GamesBeat points out, that’s because of the limitations of Sony’s backward compatibility program. Getting Rocket League to support 120fps would require Psyonix to develop a native version for the PS5.
This means that Xbox is, without a doubt, the best console for anyone who’s starting to get competitive about Rocket League. High frame rates matter way more than graphical fidelity. It’s not the be-all and end-all though. I always loved this story about former pro Matt who used to turn his monitor down to 60fps when he’d play in LAN tournaments. Even though they were big fancy events with high-end sponsors who provided monitors that could hit 240fps, Matt played on a 60Hz monitor at home. He didn’t want to risk playing worse because it wouldn’t feel like what he was used to.
It’s also worth noting that these upgrades won’t be implemented right away. They’re coming later in 2020 as part of a new “Video Quality” setting. At launch, both Xbox consoles will support 4K and 60fps. But when that gets bumped up to 120fps, watch out. That’s probably the boost you need to finally hit Grand Champ. Probably.
Play Rocket League on Xbox Series X, Series S, and PlayStation 5 [Rocket League]
