Hello everyone! It’s been a busy October for us so far. We brought over 100 new items to the Esports Shop last week in v2.05, featuring Decals for 34 different RLCS teams from around the world. We also brought James Bond back with 007's Aston Martin Valhalla -- check out the siiick trailer, and learn more about the new car before it leaves the Item Shop on October 13!

But we’re not done with October just yet. Another game update is dropping tomorrow, October 12 at 4 p.m. PDT (11 p.m. UTC). v2.06 is bringing a very cool addition to training, inspired by our friends in the modding community. Free Play Ball Control is coming to every platform, and it will dramatically level up your time spent in Free Play. Whether you’re waiting in queue, waiting on friends, or you just want to warm up solo, new controls in Free Play will allow you to:

  • Take possession
  • Start a dribble
  • Pass the ball
  • Launch the ball upward (think Hoops tip-off)
  • Defend against a shot

We’re excited to see what you all think of the addition, especially those of you playing on consoles. While Rocket League is always going to have larger, significant updates tied to new seasons, one of our goals for 2022 is to release smaller updates like this one more frequently, giving us the opportunity to implement exciting new ideas and quality-of-life improvements more freely. 

We also want to talk about matchmaking and player behavior a bit. Since introducing matchmaking penalties to Casual Playlists at the start of Season 4, we’ve seen a significant increase in match completion rates. We’ve also seen a very small uptick in some forms of toxic behavior, and we’ve dished out several small, tactical Unsportsmanlike Conduct ban waves over the last few weeks in response. Along with these ban waves, we’re working on some new approaches to how we handle Unsportsmanlike Conduct reporting behind the scenes. We’ll talk about that more once the changes are in place.

While we aren’t setting a specific cadence for Community Update posts just yet, you can expect more of these during each season. We hope you’re all having a fantastic Fall, and don’t worry, we’re going to share more about Haunted Hallows very soon. Some of you will go absolutely batty over what’s coming with our annual Halloween event, so stay tuned!