Psyonix finally hunkered down and hammered out a release date for Rocket League on the anvil of development schedules. The game has already released on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and was announced for the Nintendo Switch earlier this year, and now it's scheduled to release this month on the 14th.
According to Polygon, the release date is set for November 14th. This means that starting next week you'll be able to get in play-time for the very first time with Rocket League on the Nintendo Switch.
The significance of this news is pretty huge for several reasons. First of all, Rocket League will be playable via portable means, making it one of the few multiplayer focused games on the Switch that you can play either in TV mode, tabletop mode, or while on the go.
Additionally, Psyonix added some special accessories to the game, allowing Nintendo gamers to customize their vehicles with specialized Nintendo-themed items, such as Super Mario color schemes and Mario and Luigi hats and overall liveries for the cars. There are also three new Nintendo vehicles, two of which are based on Mario and Luigi sporting red and blue and green and blue liveries. There's also a specially designed Samus Gunship vehicle based on Samus Aran's spaceship from the Metroid series. The vehicle looks pretty cool, with a green honeycomb windshield and a bronze-colored body based on Samus' iconic armor.
But that's not all! The Nintendo Switch version of Rocket League also supports something that gamers have been begging for, for quite some time: cross-platform support.
When the game becomes available on November 14th, Switch owners will be able to play online against Xbox One gamers and PC gamers.
It's a pretty cool thing given that this means you could technically take your Nintendo Switch over to a friend's house and battle it out against them while they play the game on the couch via Xbox One and you play on the couch in portable mode on the Switch. This level of cross-platform compatibility is nearly unprecedented.
Unfortunately, Sony is the odd man out this time around, opting to forfeit the opportunity to allow cross-platform support for Rocket League. You can still play the game against Steam players while on the PS4, but you won't be able to play against Xbox One or Nintendo Switch players.
A lot of gamers were rather peeved at the idea that Sony did not want to support the cross-platform efforts from Psyonix. Sony originally cited security concerns, but this response rightfully angered Xbox's Phil Spencer, especially considering that Sony was the one who suffered the massive data breach back in 2011 with the PlayStation Network hack.
In any case, Nintendo Switch owners will soon be able to play against Xbox One and Steam users when Rocket League launches on November 14th. The Switch is already uber-popular, so we'll see just how much more popular the system will get once the multi-million selling Rocket League makes its way to Nintendo's hybrid console. I guess we'll find out next week.
