Rocket League March update heralds the end of Mac and Linux support

While March 10 may be dominated by the launch of Call of Duty: Warzone, the popular "vehicular soccer" game Rocket League also gets a major update. There's a new "Ignition" series of items and the game will now let players trade in blueprints, but this is also the final update players on Mac and Linux will ever get.

Rocket League developer Psyonix confirmed in a Friday blog post that the game's March update would go live March 10. Tuesday's update won't be the biggest to ever come to Rocket League, but it still includes welcome refinements to an already great game. The new Ignition series of in-game items will launch just after the update on Wednesday, March 11. This new series will herald the first new Rocket League car of 2020, the Komodo, and will add over 16 new items and blueprints into the game's rotation.

You may remember that developer Psyonix dropped loot boxes from Rocket League last year to replace them with a new blueprint system. It's been relatively well-received since then, but the developers are still responded to feedback and are allowing players to trade-in five blueprints of the same series and rarity in order to get better blueprints.

The next Rocket League patch also makes a plethora of other smaller but notable improvements that were all highlighted in a recent blog post by the developers. To start, inventory filters will stay active until the player exits, which is supposed to make inventory management easier. The default setting for the controls, camera, and interface have all also been tweaked slightly as doing so will apparently make it "easier for new players to see the field and control their car" in Rocket League.

If you are a fan of the original settings, a "Legacy" camera preset will still be available in settings. Finally, more options have been added to Rocket League's HDR audio so players can adjust it if they are playing at night or in a home theater.

The update will roll out across all platforms at 1 p.m Eastern on March 10, so Mac and Linux players can say goodbye to Rocket League support after that point. Fortnite developer Epic Games acquired Rocket League developer Psyonix in 2019 and soon thereafter, it was announced that Mac and Linux support for the game would be ending in March 2020.

"As we continue to upgrade Rocket League with new technologies, it is no longer viable for us to maintain support for the macOS and Linux (SteamOS) platforms," the developer explained in January. "As a result, the final patch for the macOS and Linux versions of the game will be in March. This update will disable online functionality (such as in-game purchases) for players on macOS and Linux, but offline features including Local Matches and splitscreen play will still be accessible."

Refunds are being accepted through June 10, but it's still sad to such a major game drop two platforms from its lineup.

The Inverse Analysis

Rocket League is still going strong almost five years after launch, but it's still disappointing to see Mac and Linux support end. Hopefully, this allows Psyonix to be leaner, meaner, and more ambitious with updates to the game going forward. This update was fairly low-key but features some welcome tweaks and a slick new vehicle. It won't impress anyone who's not already dedicated to the game and establishes this as a turning point for the game.