Rocket League studio Psyonix announced today that the game’s support for Mac and Linux platforms will be ending this March.
The developer said the reason for the move is to upgrade the game with “new technologies,” but did not elaborate on what those would necessarily be.
“As we continue to upgrade Rocket League with new technologies, it is no longer viable for us to maintain support for the macOS and Linux (SteamOS) platforms,” Psyonix said in a Steam announcement. “As a result, the final patch for the macOS and Linux versions of the game will be in March.”
The final patch for those versions will disable the game’s online features such as matchmaking and in-game purchases, but Rocket League on Mac and Linux will still be playable offline after the update.
According to the studio’s support article, the update will remove these features:
- Online Matchmaking
- Private Matches
- Tournaments
- Rocket Pass
- Item Shop / Esports Shop
- In-Game Events
- Friends List
- Clubs
- News Panel
- New Custom Training Packs
- New Steam Workshop Maps
- Leaderboards
- League Rankings
Psyonix also listed what features will still be available on those platforms after the update:
- Local Matches
- Split-Screen Play
- Garage/Inventory (Your existing items will not be removed from your inventory)
- Career Stats
- Replays
- Steam Workshop Maps (Must be downloaded before final patch)
- Custom Training Packs (Must be downloaded before final patch)
Owning a copy of Rocket League on Steam gives access to Windows, Mac, and Linux versions, so players could play on a Windows machine to gain full functionality.
Psyonix suggests affected users to use Apple’s Boot Camp tool to install Windows 7 and up to play on Mac hardware and Steam’s Proton app or Wine software to play on Linux, though none of the tools are officially supported by the developer.
Rocket League is also available and will still be supported after March on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Update 1/24: Psyonix revealed the reason behind ending support for the Mac and Linux versions of Rocket League in a Reddit post today.
According to the company, it plans to update the Windows version from 32-bit to 64-bit and from Direct X9 to Direct X11 later this year. Once Direct X11 is implemented, Direct X9 can no longer be supported as it will be “incompatible with future content.”
Since the Mac and Linux versions rely on Direct X9, the clients would not work anymore unless Psyonix continually invests time and resources into other rendering software such as Metal for Mac and Vulkan/OpenGL4 on Linux.
Psyonix said that the number of active players on Mac and Linux combined represented “less than 0.3% of our active player base” and could not justify developing native clients for those platforms.
The company also updated its support article on the end of support to include how to refund the game if players have played on Mac or Linux.
Psyonix initially told players yesterday that the game could be refunded on Steam by contacting the developer directly and would work with Valve to make an exception for the normal Steam refund policy of purchase after two weeks and/or two hours of play, though players were still being denied.
