Artificial intelligence has already beaten chess. Hell, the most sophisticated AI systems have a very good chance against top players in the incredibly complicated game of Go. But, in the uber-complicated car-based soccer game of Rocket League, can an AI do a boosted 360 aerial bicycle kick power shot from the midline? Can it pinch a ball off the side ramp so precisely it sails into the goal at 90 MPH? No, at least not yet, but AI can apparently dribble like a madman. For more than a week, players have been driven up the wall (sometimes literally, in game) by machine learning-based AI that's been hacked into games of Rocket League.

If you thought it was just a matter of time before Psyonix synced up with its parent company Epic Games by adding battle royale to Rocket League... your beliefs were well-founded. Psyonix is introducing a limited-time Knockout Bash mode that drops the usual vehicular soccer in favor of battle royale's familiar last-one-standing mechanic. Eight players try to survive by attacking each other and staying inside an ever-shrinking "Safezone." That will sound more than a little familiar to Fortnite fans, but Rocket League's take includes a few important twists. Players only leave after they've been knocked out three times, for instance.

The hit sports game Rocket League will soon be free to play. Developers Psyonix Games confirmed Tuesday its game, which combines soccer with high-speed vehicles, will be available to play for no charge starting this summer. Psyonix says the shift will happen as Rocket League makes its debut on the Epic Games Store. Anyone who played Rocket League prior to the free-to-play move will earn a Legacy status granting access to previous downloads and common in-game items. Launched in 2015 for PC and PlayStation 4, the popular sports game has snagged multiple awards and launched on several other platforms including Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

More than two years post-launch, Rocket League keeps things fresh with regular updates to its car-based soccer game. We've seen a Dropshot mode added this past March, a basketball update in April, a cyberpunk look in June, a ton of freebies in an Anniversary update this past July, and some grappling hooks and giant boots this month. Now, developer Psyonix is announcing a massive Autumn update that will bring a host of new additions, including transparent goalposts, LAN play for PC and a Director mode that seems made especially for Rocket League eSports competitions. The new update should drop September 28th. The transparent goalposts were teased last month; now we know exactly when they'll be available in matches.

All online games eventually die. But the difference between the original version of World of Warcraft and, say, Call of Duty: Ghosts is that WoW was more of a service on an open system (PC). Players were able to gradually migrate to its annual expansions, while remaining a part of the overall population. Comparatively, CoD is a franchise with annual sequels on several different pieces of hardware, each with cordoned off players who jump from one game to the next. But sometimes you don't want to stop playing a game just because seemingly everyone has moved on after 14 months.