If only this Rocket League trailer were for a new game instead of a new car
The trailer for the 007 Aston Martin Valhalla car body has made us pine for a Midnight Club-style Rocket League spin-off.
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Sometimes, the trailer is better than the thing the trailer is promoting. In thevideoembedded above, an Aston Martin Valhalla supercar races through the streets of London chasing a giant bouncing ball, and then switches on its rocket engines—which can’t be great for the hybrid’s fuel efficiency—and flies over the Westminster Bridge. It looks like Rocket League poured into the mold of classic Rockstar Games racer Midnight Club.
Sadly, the trailer isn’t for a new game. It’s promoting a premium Rocket League car bodybased on one of the Aston Martinsthat appears in new Bond movie No Time to Die. It’ll be available in the Rocket League item shop on October 7 for 1,100 credits, or in a 2,000 credit bundle that also includes the1963 Aston Martin DB5.
Like the McLaren 570S Rocket League body I never use, the Valhalla mostly isn’t customizable. You’ll be stuck with the included Aston Martin wheels and decal, which can’t be equipped to other cars. It’s a cool-looking vehicle, sure, but how can its boring paint job hope to compete with my car’s animated ice floe decal and mist-emitting snowflake wheels? It simply cannot.
If Psyonix ever makes a new game, though, it could do a lot worse than a street racer with Rocket League’s car handling. I’m not sure exactly how they’d incorporate aerials or whether a giant ball should continue to play a role, but since Rocket League 2 doesn’t really make sense—what’s it going to add, offsides calls?—Rocket League racing feels like the obvious route. There are alreadyplayer-made Rocket League tracksthat explore the concept.
Then again, maybe I’m not being adventurous enough here. WhatwouldRocket League with offsides calls look like? Or to throw out all pretense that it’s a soccer game, how about Rocket League, but the field is the size of the Great Plains, and giant teams have to move the ball for miles, like in Jon Bois' vision ofAmerican football in the year 17776? The concept of cars playing sports that people normally play clearly hasn’t been explored enough.
(A digression: It bugs me that Pixar created a world populated by sentient cars, and then decided that the sport all the cars are into is… car racing. I guess it would be hard to animate cars playing baseball or rugby, but there are movies about a Golden Retriever that plays basketball, football, soccer, baseball, and volleyball, so I think you could do it.)
For now, we just have a good trailer for a James Bond car you can buy. I also expect a teaser for Haunted Hallows, Rocket League’s yearly Halloween event, to activate pleasant autumnal feelings within the next few weeks—it’s my version of pumpkin spice.
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Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the ’80s and ’90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call “boomer shooters” now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that’s right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he’s focused on the site’s news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.
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