Rocket League mutators are out today in a free update

When a giant ball is in play, the cars basically orbit it.

If you have Rocket League in your Steam library, good news! It got a free update today adding mutators and a new playlist that randomly cycles them. I played a few mutated matches just now, and it's exactly what I expected when it was announced: a way to play Rocket League where I can stop caring so much about the score, and focus on doing stupid mid-air tricks and aimless somersaults.

My favorite mutators are the low-gravity Moonball mode, which lets you fly across the map with a few taps of the boost, and any mode with a giant ball. The giant ball is great, because it gives everyone a chance to do aerials and make epic saves, often all at once in a mid-air pushing contest.

They're not all fun—I don't love Time Warp, which makes everything go slow-mo whenever someone hits the ball, and just feels disorienting—but they all have the effect of taking the pressure off for some low-stakes matches in between the competitive stuff. And maybe certain settings will be taken more seriously in time, the way I only play Unreal Tournament 2K4 with Instagib. In custom matches, there's lots to experiment with. You could play a match, for instance, with low gravity, a gigantic ball, friendly fire (teammates can demolish each other), unlimited boost, and no reset after goals. I've dropped a screenshot of the options in below.

There's a bit more, too: Next month, we'll get the hockey mutator, which turns the grass to ice and the ball into a puck, and I look forward to seeing how that works out. No one is saying my nickname is going to be 'The Dominik Hasek of Rocket League,' but I mean, they could start saying that now and we'll just see if it sticks.

RocketLeague 2015-11-09 13-08-57-82

Tyler Wilde
Executive Editor

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.