The Rocket League symbol pops up, you press start, play, then a peculiar screen appears in front of you. One that has many choices, one where thousands of players are awaiting your arrival with glee. The Game Mode Selection Screen!



If you are first trying to break into the world of Rocket League, or even if you have started playing already, the goal is to become a better and more experienced player. To do this, you must try out the various game modes Psyonix offers in their highly-successful and sought after game.

What Is Rocket League?

In case you have been living under a rock, or on the WoW servers, Rocket League is a competitive soccer game made by Psyonix, where instead of using pesky things like legs or feet to hit the ball, they make it easy for you to sit back and relax in your rocket-powered car. Surprisingly Rocket League is a sequel to their first attempt at "soccer with cars" which was appropriately called, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. Through the years Psyonix has added a plethora of game modes which have kept a consistent flow of new players buying the game long after release. It is exactly those magical, player-attracting game modes which I want to introduce to you today.

COMPETITIVE PLAYLISTS

If you have played any game with some sort of ranking system, the competitive playlists in Rocket League will seem pretty natural to you. It's a simple algorithm which awards you with a rank and a division depending on how much your winning and losing. Ranks range from Bronze to Grand Champion with much in between. Every time you enter a competitive playlist you are putting your hard earned rank on the line, so be careful about who you're playing with.

Only some playlists are competitive, for those who just want to have fun without the pressure, or exhilaration, of a competitive match, there are 4 casual playlists to choose from. 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4, each having a twin in the competitive playlists, except for 4v4, instead, there is a 3v3 solo playlist which allows people with no team or party to play in balanced matches. For those who have an itch for the abstract and funky, there are 4 alternative playlists that have become ranked in the September Season 9 update. The one I would like to speak about today was the first alternative mode introduced into the game, Snow Day.

Snow Day

First introduced into the game in 2015, Snow Day is Rocket League if you exchanged the soccer aspect and replaced it with hockey. This mode was the first to heavily change the delicate physics of the original game to match the hockey puck that appropriately takes the place of the soccer ball. Due to extremely positive feedback, this mode was permanently added to the game for everyone to enjoy and now takes its place proudly in the Competitive Playlists.

If you want to become a confident Rocket League player not just on the grass but the ice as well, there's one thing you have to remember, the puck will stay on the ground in almost every situation. No matter how hard you hit it, the puck will stubbornly obey gravity and not lift a single inch into the air, this makes defending much easier and your opponents shot more predictable. Now about those times the puck does fly into the air; there are only two times you will be in this situation, one, when the puck is hit hard enough to reach the ceiling and simply falls straight down, two, when you and another player hit it at the same time. This is your opportunity to use your boost and hit it in the air before your opponent can get to it. An air shot with a puck is much harder to block then when it is on the ground since it is thin and will likely shoot by the goalie before he/she will have time to react. The last thing to remember is to always follow the puck until your last ounce of boost is gone. Sometimes you will have an incredible shot, only for it to be easily blocked since you didn't give it that small push at the end to get it past your enemy.

Tips to remember:

Puck stays on the ground

Aerial (air hit) when you can

Follow-up on your shots

If you have any of your own tips to add, please leave them in the comments below. You can check out more amazing guides like this one, 5 tips to become pro . Now that you have the knowledge to participate in ranked matches, go use it to gain the skill needed to become a true pro!

Rocket League is available to purchase on PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4.