By Ginx Tv eSports
While it might not be a surprise to hear, it’s still exciting to discover that Rocket League has officially announced its second season of the Rocket League Championship Series.
Only recently did the RLCS season one conclude, with winners iBuyPower Cosmic playing some great Rocket League to take on some of the world’s greatest (and even would-be-potential winners of the tournament) teams.
Psyonix revealed that the finals of the RLCS managed one million viewers, a big number for a game that admittedly doesn’t have the wider appeal of games such as League Of Legends or CS:GO.
But it seems they’re hoping Rocket League will be even bigger the second time around, and as a result the prize pool has been boosted from $75,000 to a much more tantalising $250,000.
While this should never be the be-all and end-all of a good eSports tournament, it’ll certainly help to draw in more teams, more viewers and more interest – as we mentioned in our article about how detrimental Dota 2’s massive prize pool could be to the industry.
Psyonix revealed that it has been taking feedback from the Rocket League community, too, which has driven a lot of the improvements that will be coming with RLCS’s second season.
The biggest of these was the format of the tournament, which was admittedly complicated. A series of open qualifiers allowed teams to compete for placements in the regional qualifiers, with weighted points adding to a league table.
It was, as the community has highlighted, rather confusing. But that’s being changed at least.
Second 2 will also begin with an open qualifier phase, until the top eight teams of each region are discovered. At this point these teams will take place in League Play – a four-week group phase that will use Round-Robin format of best-of-five games.
After this stage the best six teams of each region will qualify for the Regional Playoffs, two weeks of games that will ultimately leave the final four teams of each region making it into the knockout stage of the Grand Finals – though only the top two teams of each region will be guaranteed a spot.
The remaining four teams will take place in a double-elimination bracket to find out who will proceed to the grand finals.
It’s a much more understandable – and familiar – method of tournament play, highlighting that Psyonix and Rocket League has clearly learned from its early stumbles in the first RLCS season.
Sign-ups for Rocket League’s second season of RLCS begin this week – on the 24 August. For more information on the Rocket League Championship Series take a look at the official website at rocketleagueesports.com