Developer Psyonix has announced something that some fans of their sport racing game are sure to hate. has announced that the upcoming March patch for the game’s Linux and Mac versions will be the final update for the platform. After that patch, support for the two platforms will cease when it comes to Rocket League.
The announcement was made by the developer on the Steam Community Forums, stating that as it “continues to upgrade Rocket League with new technologies, it is no longer viable for us to maintain support for the macOS and Linux (SteamOS) platforms.” Fan reaction, as you could guess, is less-than-positive. That’s mainly because it means players on these platforms will now be locked out of online multiplayer.
The infrastructure for the online multiplayer in Rocket League relies on version parity between players, mostly to try and prevent cheating and piracy, and without the same version as everyone else, you cannot play online. That loss has caused some pretty severe fan backlash against Psyonix, with many fans being outraged. It all means that the only thing you can play in Rocket League post-patch will be offline matches against AI.
The announcement suggests that MacOS users buy a Windows OS license and run future online versions of Rocket League through Apple Boot Camp or a similar dual-boot solution. The company also stresses that “these tools are not officially supported by Psyonix,” so there may be issues they cannot assist with.
The cost of a valid and ethically sourced Windows license is pretty high, sometimes north of $130 USD for Windows 10 versions. It’s absurdly tone deaf for Psyonix to just wipe their hands of the whole affair and lock out thousands of players behind a paywall. What’s even more baffling is the push towards cross-platform support, that one would think includes a desire to keep as many people playing as possible.
The move follows last year’s acquisition of Psyonix by Epic Games, which many fans pointed to as a sign of worry. No doubt that this rather idiotic response will fuel more suspicion of Epic Games, even though there’s no indication Epic has a hand in this decision. Even after Psyonix finally removed loot boxes and normalized progression, you would think they wouldn’t take a step back like this.
