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Rocket League Championship Series sees rocket cars going full eSports on Twitch

Kris Wouk
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From the very start, Rocket League seemed like a game that would be perfect for eSports, but developer Psyonix made an important choice. Instead of forcing an emphasis on eSports from the very start (think
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Evolve), the developer instead waited to see if the community necessary for an eSports focus would form around the game.
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It seems that this did indeed happen, as yesterday Psyonix and Twitch announced that they would come together for the Rocket League Championship Series. As the name suggests, this will be the official competitive league around the game.

The season kicks off later this year with open qualifiers, and will run for three months. The Championship Series will see teams of three battling it out over a total prize pool of $75,000. That’s not exactly the $15 million prize pool pulled in by The International with the Dota 2 championship, but considering we’re talking about an indie title that launched less than a year ago, it’s still some serious cash.

Registration opens later this month on March 25, and will be open to players of the PC and PlayStation 4 versions of the game. Xbox One players are left out for now, presumably because that console’s version of the game only launched a few weeks ago, but Twitch director of eSports operations Nick Allen told Fortune that the console would be added to the competition later on.

Rocket League
Image used with permission by copyright holder

As for Twitch’s part of the partnership, games will be broadcast live on the official Rocket League Championship Series Twitch channel. “We’ll be focusing on online play for the early stages of the competition (qualifiers and regional finals), with the capstone event being a live, international championship,” Allen said.

It seems that 2016 is shaping up to be a big year for Psyonix and Rocket League. Last week the developer announced that it would be bringing Rocket League to store shelves later this year. With the Championship Series putting the game in front of more people, those who have been holding out on buying the game digitally may be more interested in bringing the game home.

For more information on how to watch or enter the competition, see the official Twitch channel and the new Rocket League eSports website.

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Kris Wouk
Kris Wouk
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
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