We’re halfway through season three of the Rocket League Championship Series, and to celebrate, several teams are participating in an invitational today where the maps and settings were determined by viewers. Opening the action were Atelier and Denial Esports, who would soon be plunged into the sound and fury of community-nominated novelty game modes.
Game one pit the teams against each other in Dropshot, a special mode where rather than defined goals on each side of the pitch, the goals are the floor itself. Teams have to bounce the ball onto the floor to knock away panels, referred to as “gates,” and then hit it back into the openings to score points.
For a game usually played with a horizontal goal to angle for, the verticality of Dropshot led to some incredible shots, like this pseudo-bicycle tip from Denial to score the first goal of the mayhem.
Game two pit the teams against each other in Rumble, where one of several random power-ups are given to every player in ten-second intervals. Sticky darts, spikes that can puncture the ball, infinite boost and icy freezing are all possible, turning a standard Rocket League match into a Mario Kart-esque soccer match.
The maps continued on all the way through a standard map with the ball bounce ramped up to high, before ending on a retro circular map, where the goals opened into each other in a donut-shaped arena. Here, Denial cemented a lead that Atelier couldn’t recover from, and moved on in the bracket 3-1.
The Midseason Mayhem runs all day today, so if you want to see some more Dropshot and physics-warping action, you can tune in on the Rocket League Twitch channel.