As we’re a full month into the New Year, it's time for Rocket League’s first game update of 2024 and a look at some of what’s coming! Tomorrow’s game update adds a new anti-smurfing measure: a higher Competitive Minimum Level Requirement. The update also refreshes the Esports Shop for the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) 2024 Season. Read on for more details!   

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We’ve seen a lot of community chatter lately around allowing players to bypass the minimum level required to play in the Competitive Playlist by partying up with other players. Smurfing is something that we know is frustrating, so we wanted to share a bit of the design philosophy behind that original decision and why we are making some changes in tomorrow’s update.

The Competitive Minimum Level Requirement was introduced when Rocket League became playable for free in 2020 and was meant to serve a couple of purposes. While we wanted to make it more difficult to smurf, one of the main goals was to make sure that new players were not blocked from playing with friends. The Casual experience back then was rife with early quitting and was considered by many as a less enjoyable experience. 

We therefore made the decision to let players experience Rocket League in the best way possible at that time, with friends in the Competitive Playlist.     

At that time we also started making changes to the Casual Playlist, with the goal of making it an equally enjoyable experience to Competitive play. We now feel we’ve reached that goal, and because of that, our thinking has changed around the need to allow players to bypass the Competitive Minimum Level Requirement.   

In tomorrow’s update, the Competitive Minimum Level Requirement will be raised from Level 10 to Level 20, and now every player in a Party will need to be Level 20 or higher in order to queue for the Competitive Playlist. These changes are some of several gameplay improvements we are working on this year to minimize behavior that can lead to unfair matches.

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