WSOE announces Rocket League event for late January

WSOE has announced a Rocket League event towards the end of January. The news comes from their latest WSOE 3 Fortnite stream, where they announced WSOE 4 is going to be Rocket League.

https://clips.twitch.tv/VastEmpathicShrimpDAESuppy

No heads up

Strangely enough, the professional players allegedly never heard anything about the WSOE 4 event itself. With just a few weeks to go, it’s rather unusual they weren’t informed of a major LAN taking place aside from the cryptic tweets last month.

Come to our event in January. Vegas at the aria, we will fly you out. 100k prize pool

— Christian Bishop (@bishopchristian) December 3, 2018

Several high-profile players publically stated they knew nothing official about the event, and unless they were omitted from the list of informed players or were informed in the last few days, the WSOE 4 announcement comes at very short notice.

With just the brief announcement and the open qualifiers suddenly listed on smash.gg, information about the process of the event seems lacking. Trevor “DudeWithTheNose” Hannah of Splyce even joked about it on Twitter.

it's part rocket league tourney part puzzle. like the amazing race or something. if you can figure out how to play in the tourney you're halfway to the grand finals

— Trevor Hannah (@DudeWithNose_RL) January 1, 2019

RLCS to move away from league play?

Regardless of the vagueness, more major Rocket League events are always welcome. With yet another $100K tournament, we’re now looking at six confirmed major LANs this year so far, with WSOE, four DreamHack events, and at least one RLCS. And if RLCS is held twice this year as usual, we’re looking at even seven major events.

However, there is debate among the fans whether RLCS will be held twice this year. With more major events popping up, fans are arguing that Rocket League should ditch league play and instead move to a Pro Circuit system like, for example, League of Legends. This would then also lead to RLCS being held just once a year as opposed to twice a year. With league play removed and just one LAN, prize money would subsequently also no longer be split among three (or four with South America) regions, nor between two seasons. This would lead to more significant prize pools as well as higher stakes when the world championship happens.

Organization items?

On top of the rumours, one could also consider if this is why in-game organization-themed items still haven’t happened. With a promise from Psyonix that they are to be implemented before the conclusion of the RLCS Season 7 World Championships, it could be argued that they are waiting with the addition until they know what the future of Rocket League esports looks like. Perhaps we’re grasping at straws here, but it’s something to consider.