The team at Rocket League developer Psyonix announced today that they’ve been acquired by Epic Games, though the terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The deal is expected to close late this month or early next, and when it does Epic will have one of the more popular and enduring multiplayer games in recent history firmly in its stable.
However, it may be a minute before Rocket League actually appears in Epic’s new storefront; in an FAQ post published alongside the news, Psyonix notes that “in the long-term, we expect to bring Rocket League to the Epic Games store and to leverage our new relationship to grow the game in ways we couldn’t do on our own before.”
When Rocket League does come to the Epic Games Store (in “late 2019”, according to a press release) it will presumably no longer be purchasable on Steam, though Epic claims that Psyonix will continue to support the game on Steam for everyone who owns it there.
This new relationship isn’t a huge surprise, given that both parties have collaborated for decades (most if not all of Psyonix’s games are built with Unreal Engine), and Psyonix has previously worked with Epic stakeholder Tencent to put out a free-to-play version of Rocket League in China.
“We’ve been working closely with Epic since the early days of Unreal Tournament, and we’ve survived changing tides as partners, so combining forces makes sense in many ways,” Psyonix founder Dave Hagewood stated in the press release confirming the deal. “The potential of what we can learn from each other and accomplish together makes us truly excited for the future.”
Psyonix says it also expects to continue to expand operations at its San Diego headquarters, which currently employs 132 people.