Epic Games and Psyonix will soon be transitioning Rocket League to a free-to-play model, but some outdated restrictions on online play are now rearing their ugly head. Players on PS4 and Nintendo Switch will not be required to have active subscriptions to their respective console’s online services while Xbox One users will. Talk about an unfair advantage.
Ever since the launch of the PS4 in 2013, free-to-play games with online support have not required an active subscription to Sony’s PlayStation Plus service. Similarly, free games on Switch (apart from Nintendo’s exclusive offerings) don’t require users to pay for online play. Xbox One users, on the other hand, have had to pay for Xbox Live Gold for similar games. There are some exceptions, but they are just that: exceptions.
The likely scenario here is that Epic Games wasn’t able to negotiate a workaround with Microsoft. Due to the way Xbox Live is setup, Rocket League will continue to require an active subscription if players want to participate online. At least the game has cross-play, so it won’t suddenly become a dead zone thanks to this restriction. It’s still an absolute shame that Microsoft couldn’t have relaxed the policy a bit.
Source: Rocket League
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