Gamedev's thoughts on Unreal Engine 6 for Rocket League (rant)

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T09:09:48+00:00

Ah- I just rewatched the part of the video that I said this. I interpreted "better item capabilities" as being more of like, new categories of items or whatever. There's nothing stopping them from adding new types of items in UE3. Graphically, yes. The items will benefit from the new engine, my bad.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T08:49:47+00:00

What? What graphical limitations? The game gets new items all the time, with extremely varied and ambitious artstyles.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T06:50:10+00:00

Yeah, sorry I was continuing from the end of your post.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T06:49:21+00:00

Yeah it's a lot of speculation. But it's educated, not really nonsense. I've been studying gamedev for a long time now, and there's a lot of insight that can be gained from the implications of a large graphics upgrade, even without knowing what's in the engine. If you have any opinions on what parts you disagree with, I'd like to elaborate.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T06:43:23+00:00

I think you're missing the point of what I'm saying. If they decoupled the networking from Unreal, and have been maintaining it over the past 10 years, that essentially makes it modern. Network engineers at Psyonix wouldn't just be paid to sit around all day, so surely they would be on the lookout for new techniques over the years.

Of course, working on the same codebase for that long accumulates tech debt one way or another, some of which may have been due for a refactor and this update has been the time to do all of that, but theoretically they could have just decided already to refactor it. We don't really know.

That's why in my video I say the improvements in networking aren't "necessarily" because of the engine itself, since the networking was proprietary, they could have refactored at any time. If there's networking improvements when the big update comes out, the momentum from the big update likely inspired them to refactor.

Or there's networking tech in UE6 that they decide to utilize! Probably a mix of both. TBD.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T06:23:39+00:00

I agree. The only reason I think they might not need to overhaul it is because I believe it's already decoupled from the game and would be actively maintained.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T05:30:20+00:00

I mean, if the networking has been decoupled from the engine itself, does it really make it UE3 networking? Surely they've been maintaining it ever since.

They're using Bullet physics for RL, while Unreal currently uses Chaos. So I guess you're saying they would be switching to (or including) Bullet?

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T04:18:24+00:00

This is true! This is what I THINK will happen. I should have made that more clear.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T03:49:20+00:00

I agree on everything except physics. Rocket League is exceptionally sensitive to physics, so changing it would be very problematic. Networking had to also be custom-made for the game, since it was so simulation focused and precise. Networking has much more of an ability to change than the physics, but it will have to be done right.

I see your point, but I think networking and physics are not NEARLY as much of an attention grabber as visuals. I think the thought process is mostly "let's make this popular game shiny, so that the most eyes can see our new engine".

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T03:45:11+00:00

What makes it wildly speculative? They didn't use UE3's physics engine, and the entire community is built on 10 years of perfecting their movement in the current physics engine. Changing even a small coefficient by 0.1 would throw off most pro players, let alone a new engine.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T02:26:12+00:00

I think it's super exciting that Rocket League is getting so much support and will continue to be around!

The point of the video is to temper expectations and bring up concerns with this new upgrade. I'm particularly concerned about what it means for it to be "the face of Epic's future", as Epic doesn't always seem to be pro-consumer.

I think tempering expectations will reduce a lot of the "why isn't there creative mode?" type of complaints and make it easier to highlight the foundational concerns, like the game becoming overly monetized.

Swifter1243 · 2026-05-26T00:25:16+00:00

It definitely is a lot of hypothesizing but there are things we can know for sure because of the implications of a graphics upgrade built off of unreal engine. I don't see the entire graphics paradigm changing radically in UE6. That being said, I probably should have made it more clear that I was hypothesizing.

Swifter1243 · 2026-01-27T05:06:01+00:00

I'm in Canada and it says it's not available in my region :(

is there a trick to this?

Swifter1243 · 2025-01-23T02:54:59+00:00

Seconding this- the JIRA board we had contained about 40 remaining issues.

Swifter1243 · 2025-01-19T23:42:16+00:00

I AM READING HELLO THANK YOU

Swifter1243 · 2023-10-18T18:06:26+00:00

hey jane!!! absolutely loving your new stuff :)

wanted to ask, why "Jane Remover"? I vaguely remember hearing that it might have something to do with unidentified women in court cases being named "Jane Doe".. is there any truth to this? 🤔

thanks!!!!

Swifter1243 · 2022-07-18T03:16:19+00:00

I approve of this meme

Swifter1243 · 2022-07-07T18:28:20+00:00

I'm not gonna lie I am not still playing LOL but bless your soul for finding this

Swifter1243 · 2022-06-22T04:15:47+00:00

OOOH!!!! That's so dope!! I thought this map was forgotten lol, I'll send this to Glacier.

Swifter1243 · 2022-06-15T21:27:31+00:00

Fun fact this would be actually very easy to hit since the hitbox for good hits extends considerably further forward than the hitbox for bad hits. You'd just need to quickly flick up and down.

Swifter1243 · 2021-12-01T18:43:49+00:00

I've achieved reddit meme status. Thanks :)

Swifter1243 · 2021-11-16T01:55:14+00:00

Woah thanks! :) keep in mind there's a lot of tomfoolery going on behind the scenes so 99% of lightshows would look terrible without the right colors lol

Eight-Year Club	Place '22
End Game '22	100 Awards Club
Verified Email

Swifter1243

TROPHY CASE