Epic Games is acquiring Rocket League studio Psyonix, game will remain on Steam

Psyonix, the studio behind Rocket League, is being acquired by Epic Games. The surprise announcement was made by the indie studio today in a blog post, saying it is "officially joining the Epic Games family."

Although the Epic Games Store has been snatching games as exclusives since its debut late last year, this is a big move for the company, considering how popular the indie hit has been since its 2015 release.

Psyonix says that nothing in Rocket League will change in the short term, with the studio focused on bringing in new content for the rocket car-based football game. In the long term, however, it says that the game will be coming to the Epic Games Store "to grow the game in ways we couldn’t do on our own before."

Contrary to what other news sites have reported, it appears the game will continue to be available on Steam, at least for now. Epic Games senior marketing manager Dana Cowley said on Twitter that "We are continuing to sell Rocket League on Steam, and have not announced plans to stop selling the game there."

Rocket League remains available for new purchasers on Steam, we'll continue to support it on Steam for existing players after it comes to the store. Folks will still be able to play Rocket League on Steam with all of the content they've previously purchased, same as always.
— Dana Cowley (@danacowley) May 1, 2019

The Psyonix studio acquisition is expected to complete by early June 2019. Interestingly, Epic Games will own the only two games that have cross-play functionality across Xbox One and PlayStation 4 - Fortnite and Rocket League - once the deal goes through.

The Steam store page of Rocket League is already being hammered with negative user reviews, but we should see Valve's anti-review bomb system kick in soon.