Rocket League is one of the more resilient free-to-play live service games out there, maintaining and enthusiastic car soccer fanbase since its launch in 2015, but lately, something has been conspiring to ruin the run. Starting late last year, bots began to invade the game and quickly became a major disruption for those just looking to have fun. Developer Psyonix remained rather quiet on the subject for a while, but thankfully, they’ve now addressed the bot situation, dropping the banhammer and promising additional anti-cheat measures in the future.

　　“For the last several weeks, the introduction of third-party bots to online matches – in Competitive Playlists, especially – has understandably been a very active topic among the Rocket League community. Earlier today, we took action against a number of accounts running bots in Rocket League. This banwave should cover the vast majority of accounts that have used bots since they first appeared in online matches towards the end of 2022, and we will continue to monitor for bots and take appropriate action against any players/accounts using them. Furthermore, to help us address bots in future matches, we have added a “Cheating” report reason back into the game. You can find this in game on the report reason list in the Report/Block menu.

　　Finally, we are taking steps to introduce additional anti-cheat functionality into Rocket League. This is in progress with the engineering teams, and we’ll share more on this once we’re closer to implementation. While we have been quiet on the subject during this time, we have been actively investigating these bots since they first appeared late last year. We strive to be active participants when it comes to community conversations about our game, but we are always going to be more deliberate on issues related to game security and competitive integrity, withholding comments until we are ready to take action.”

　　As usual with large banwaves, some folks are complaining they were unjustly caught in the crossfire, but it’s always hard to know whether they have a legitimate gripe or are just cheaters trying to weasel out of their just punishment. Hopefully, the battle of bots is one Rocket League can win.

　　Rocket League can be played on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and Switch.