While we’d previously heard about the side-scrolling Rocket League: Sideswipe coming to mobile, the ongoing Apple v. Epic court battle has unearthed emails and documents revealing plenty – including that the latter is planning to bring the full Rocket League experience to smartphones.
The document (opens in new tab) – a slideshow from mid-2020 outlining Epic’s plans for the next year uploaded by The Verge (opens in new tab) – doesn’t reveal when the game would fully release, but one slide (p. 91) does outright state that a Rocket League mobile public beta is planned for Q2 2021.
The beta will be part of what’s phrased as Rocket League “Next,” which is a ‘next-generation client’ that enables cross-play and cross-progress across all platforms – including mobile.
Mobile Rocket League is coming regardless
This game won’t be at the expense of Rocket League: Sideswipe, which is detailed in the following slide (p. 92) as ‘Rocket League rebuilt for touch controls’ that will almost certainly launch first, especially after it held a limited alpha in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, per Android Police.
Of course, a lot has changed in the last year, and it’s unclear if Epic and its subsidiary Psyonix, which launched Rocket League in 2015 and is assumedly working on the full mobile version, will continue with plans outlined in the internal-only slideshow. It’s anyone’s guess if it’s still in development, or if Epic would rather wait to see how this trial shakes out before it goes forward with another smartphone game.
Via XDA Developers (opens in new tab)
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