As going hands-on with the 3v3 action of Rocket Arena recently, we also had the chance to sit down with the CEO of Final Strike Games. In our chat we discussed the switch away from the free-to-play first-person version we saw in 2019, to the full-featured third-person pick-up-and-play style present in the game out next week.

Yeah, Rocket Arena is out July 14 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One for $39.95 AUD - and will support cross-plat on day one.

“The game that was played last year was in first-person and it was quite a bit faster,” Kevin says of the last year or so of development. Going third-person put more focus on character and led to a major new gameplay mechanic – air dodge. “It works along alongside the core combat loop where you can use rocket-jump, rocket-climb, and now air-dodge to kind of get back into the action.”

“Air-dodge was the feature that we knew would give players the tool to avoid incoming rockets and make our gameplay unique,” Kevin adds. Spending countless hours testing and iterating internally and gather feedback has seen the overall feel of Rocket Arena improve too. Rocket jumping evolved from being almost scripted to now a free-flowing moving in any direction you want kind of thing. “You can go horizontally off walls, you can go diagonally, you can time it with your jump to go higher,” Kevin explains. “We wanted to really push the core sandbox of the game, and I think that alone made a big improvement.”

Click Here for Our Full Rocket Arena Interview