Rocket League mutators are out today in a free update

If you have Rocket League in your Steam library, good news!

If you have Rocket League in your Steam library, good news! It got a free update today adding mutators and a new playlist that randomly cycles them. I played a few mutated matches just now, and it's exactly what I expected when it was announced: a way to play Rocket League where I can stop caring so much about the score, and focus on doing stupid mid-air tricks and aimless somersaults.

My favorite mutators are the low-gravity Moonball mode, which lets you fly across the map with a few taps of the boost, and any mode with a giant ball. The giant ball is great, because it gives everyone a chance to do aerials and make epic saves, often all at once in a mid-air pushing contest.

They're not all fun—I don't love Time Warp, which makes everything go slow-mo whenever someone hits the ball, and just feels disorienting—but they all have the effect of taking the pressure off for some low-stakes matches in between the competitive stuff. And maybe certain settings will be taken more seriously in time, the way I only play Unreal Tournament 2K4 with Instagib. In custom matches, there's lots to experiment with. You could play a match, for instance, with low gravity, a gigantic ball, friendly fire (teammates can demolish each other), unlimited boost, and no reset after goals. I've dropped a screenshot of the options in below.

There's a bit more, too: Next month, we'll get the hockey mutator, which turns the grass to ice and the ball into a puck, and I look forward to seeing how that works out. No one is saying my nickname is going to be 'The Dominik Hasek of Rocket League,' but I mean, they could start saying that now and we'll just see if it sticks.