Psyonix And Epic Team Up To Bring Rocket League To The Epic Games Store
Aidan O'Brien
In surprising news, Psyonix and Epic Games have announced that “Psyonix is joining the Epic family” and Rocket League will be heading to the Epic Games Store. Psyonix released a statement on their website to announce the news, as well as preempt any worry that people might have about this deal.
In the short term, nothing will change at all! We’re still committed to providing Rocket League with frequent updates that have new features, new content, and new ways to play the game for as long as you’ll have us. In the long-term, we expect to bring Rocket League to the Epic Games store and to leverage our new relationship to grow the game in ways we couldn’t do on our own before. We believe that bringing Rocket League to new audiences with more support is a win for everybody.
It should be noted that while Psyonix feels confident enough to announce the news, it is not a done deal just yet. A note at the bottom of the statement advises that the transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions. Both parties expect to close the acquisition near the end of May to early June of this year.
While no details are known about the deal at this time, The Verge is reporting that Epic will be stopping the sale of Rocket League on Steam. While the game will no longer be sold on Valve’s competing platform, it will still be fully supported there for everyone who already owns it.
This feels like the riskiest move yet for Epic, as the potential to draw ire from consumers is high. The full support of the game for people who already own it on Steam is necessary, but it won’t soften the blow for a lot of people who will need to buy any potential sequel on the Epic Games Store. I would expect any annoyance people feel towards Psyonix to be tempered by the fact that they have been champions of cross-platform play, and have used their position to help push for the feature on consoles.
It also makes sense in other ways, as Epic and Psyonix have always worked closely together, since the days of Unreal Tournament. Psyonix has also provided valuable help to Epic about improving their Unreal Engine, which was the cornerstone of their business, and still is, despite all those Fortnite dollars that have been rolling in.
We will keep you updated on this story are more details become available.
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