Rocket League to end support for macOS and Linux in March 2020

[Andytizer 269]

Quote

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. As a result, the final patch for the macOS and Linux versions of the game will be in March. This update will disable online functionality (such as in-game purchases) for players on macOS and Linux, but offline features including Local Matches, and splitscreen play will still be accessible.

If you purchased Rocket League for Mac or Linux on Steam, the game will still work with full functionality when installed and played on a computer running Windows 7 or newer.

More information can be found on their support page, where they cheerfully state that most offline features will continue function as normal for macOS and Linux users.

The move to drop support for macOS and Linux is most likely to do with the fact that Epic acquired Rocket League developer Psyonix in 2019, and the fact that Epic Games Store does not support macOS or Linux.

[Rose 268]

1 hour ago, Andytizer said:

The move to drop support for macOS and Linux is most likely to do with the fact that Epic acquired Rocket League developer Psyonix in 2019, and the fact that Epic Games Store does not support macOS or Linux.

The Epic Games Store natively supports macOS.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Afterparty
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Borderlands_3
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Fortnite

and so forth.

[Guest]

My thought on the soon-to-be-lack of a MacOS port is that maybe they were relying on Valve's tech to get it running on that platform, and Epic made the decision that it'd be easier to simply drop the port than re-implement its Valve-reliant functionality.

If the game was a native port, however, then it simply got dropped for some reason.

[Andytizer 269]

MacOS and Linux support being dropped is expanded in this statement:

Quote

Rocket League is an evolving game, and part of that evolution is keeping our game client up to date with modern features. As part of that evolution, we'll be updating our Windows version from 32-bit to 64-bit later this year, as well as updating to DirectX 11 from DirectX 9.

There are multiple reasons for this change, but the primary one is that there are new types of content and features we'd like to develop, but cannot support on DirectX 9. This means when we fully release DX11 on Windows, we'll no longer support DX9 as it will be incompatible with future content.

Unfortunately, our macOS and Linux native clients depend on our DX9 implementation for their OpenGL renderer to function. When we stop supporting DX9, those clients stop working. To keep these versions functional, we would need to invest significant additional time and resources in a replacement rendering pipeline such as Metal on macOS or Vulkan/OpenGL4 on Linux. We'd also need to invest perpetual support to ensure new content and releases work as intended on those replacement pipelines.

The number of active players on macOS and Linux combined represents less than 0.3% of our active player base. Given that, we cannot justify the additional and ongoing investment in developing native clients for those platforms, especially when viable workarounds exist like Bootcamp or Wine to keep those users playing.

We apologize again for any refund-related frustration.

 

[Mirh 102]

https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLeague/comments/etiih3/update_on_refunds_for_macos_and_linux_players/

They are simply transitioning to dx11 at the end of the day, lol.

Which makes porting to opengl non-trivial on UE3 (or at least this is the impression I get from developers and observation).
And with OSX being out of the way for other reasons, I could see why it couldn't make commercial sense for somebody not-that-super-much caring about the community.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Mirh
well, seemingly I was ninja'd

[Rose 268]

Looking at Borderlands 3 currently lacking macOS support on Steam while having it on Epic, I can't help but think of this post!

[Mirh 102]

Borderlands is UE4 though. Nothing to do with RL.

If the port gearbox already made isn't available, it's probably just due to them wanting to focus on windows in the first days of steam release.