This week, on September 23, 2020, Rocket League is going to be going free-to-play on all available platforms. However, the update that launched last week to prepare current versions of the game and introduce some changes to the menu UX seems to have become a lot harder to read. This is especially concerning given that those on Nintendo Switch may struggle to read most of the information being displayed.
Here at Can I Play That, I thought it would be worth pointing out this update because of the surge in people possibly jumping on. Originally, this was going to just be a news post, but it feels more fitting to spew my thoughts out on this so you’re not downloading the game and being instantly disappointed with the presentation of text.
Last week’s update saw some big changes to some parts of the menu areas, specifically the new game mode selection screen and some additions and minor changes to the party/friend popout window. The actual menu itself has also seen some things jiggled about and simplified, with some things veteran players are used to seeing being put into different submenus.
As you can see above, the main menu features a range of different font sizes and weights, and some button prompts are a bit hit and miss with understanding them.
But even before this update, the menu, and challenges section has always been incredibly hard to read, especially with the available ‘Interface Scale’ and ‘Display Scale’ sliders —as seen above— set to the highest possible point. And even though I wasn’t expecting Psyonix to, the studio hasn’t taken the opportunity to make the game more readable.
At the moment, challenges aren’t available to view because they’re arriving in an all-new system starting tomorrow, but the previous areas required me to have to make use of the Switch’s zoom in function just to read the challenges. Given the state of the game prior to tomorrow’s free-to-play update and the sneak peek at the new challenges system, I’m not confident this area will be easy to read.
The gameplay does remain intact, however, and you can still assign your controller inputs, change your camera settings, adjust screen shake, and enable a color blind mode. It’s just a shame that areas are still so incredibly difficult to read from a distance or on a small screen. Once again, this is just another example of UIs being inaccessible because accessibility wasn’t present prior.
Rocket League gameplay is still incredibly enjoyable and works wonderfully well. It features a ball cam to follow the ball at all times, and when not following the ball you’ll have an on-screen indicator to show you its direction. The game is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch and is going to be free-to-play starting from tomorrow.
