RLCS receives complete overhaul for a $4.5 million, annual season

Psyonix has finally revealed RLCS Season X, and boy does it look different. Gone is league play, and gone is the bi-annual structure. RLCS will now employ an open event-based circuit format to determine who goes to the Rocket League World Championships. This will take place once a year. With over $4.5 million in prize money over the season, RLCS Season X looks like the burst of life that the scene needed. Let’s hope it also keeps the large organizations happy.

RLCS Season X: Here’s the scoop

Psyonix will split up RLCS into three… well, Splits: fall, winter, and spring. Each Split will have three Regional Events, culminating in a Major. This means that both North America and Europe will have three Majors in a season, followed by the World Championships.

Each Regional Event will provide a $100,000 prize pool, while the Major has a $250,000 prize pool per Split. Following that, the RLCS World Championship alone will hold a $1 million prize pool. With just one World Championship per year, this means that the prize pools of the previous iteration have combined into one. An extra $3.5 million or so was added on top of that across the rest of the season to complete the immense increase in total prize money.

Each Split will have different formats, with Fall employing 32 teams in each Regional Event. Winter will host 24 teams, and Spring will host 20 teams. The broadcast for the Fall Split starts on August 1. Those Events will remain online for now due to the COVID-19 situation.

The World Championships

First up, more teams. The Rocket League World Championships has expanded to host 16 teams, up from Season 9’s 12. Six will come from NA, six from EU, and two each from Oceania and South America. OCE and SAM will receive their own path to the World Championships, which Psyonix will share soon.

Teams qualify for the RLCS World Championships by earning points throughout the Splits. Regional Events will grant players points for both Major and World Championships qualification, albeit a smaller amount. The Majors will be where the lion’s share of the points can be earned. However, between each Split, the points will reset for Major qualification. Of course, the points earned towards the World Championships will stay intact.

But that’s not all.

RLCS: The Grid, a $10K weekly tournament

Psyonix has also announced RLCS: The Grid. For nine weeks per Split, this $10,000 weekly tournament format allows players to earn points to qualify for the Majors, gain some extra pocket money, and earn better seeding. The first one has been reserved for RLCS and RLRS players from Season 9. After that, the bottom six will have to defend their spot against new challengers.

Whereas RLCS matches were previously not allowed to be streamed by anyone other than Psyonix, the company encourages players and organizations to also broadcast the Grid matches. This is likely due to the high amount of matches to be played.

Enough to keep the organizations from leaving?

The question remains as to whether or not this will keep large organizations from leaving the Rocket League scene. Both Cloud9 and Mousesports have already departed, and it’s unlikely that they did so without knowing this change was coming. This new format looks like an excellent step in the right direction while at the same time giving the scene a breath of fresh air. What the organizations actually want from Psyonix, however, is another matter altogether.