Rocket League

Rocket League is PsyonixPublisherPsyonix / Epic GamesPsyonix is the developer of Rocket League, and an Epic Games studio since 2019. For most of its life Rocket League shipped no client-side anti-cheat; in 2026 Psyonix added Easy Anti-Cheat, with an unusually consumer-respectful rollout that preserved Linux and Steam Deck play and an opt-out for mods.1 game in this family →'s car-soccer game: rocket-powered cars playing a physics-driven ball game, with a long-running esport in the RLCS. It released July 7, 2015, and runs on a heavily customized Unreal Engine 3EngineUnreal Engine (Epic Games)Epic Games' Unreal Engine is the most widely used engine in big-budget PC games. Versions 4 and 5 power a substantial share of the modern competitive shooter market, including Valorant (UE4), Fortnite (UE5), PUBG (UE4), The Finals (UE5), and Delta Force (UE5).20 games in this family → with the open-source Bullet physics engine layered in. On September 23, 2020 it went free-to-play, moved to the Epic Games Store, and left Steam for new players (existing Steam owners keep access). Psyonix has been an Epic Games studio since 2019.

Since April 2026, online Rocket League requires Easy Anti-Cheat; on Windows that means a kernel driver that loads with the game and unloads when you close it. On Linux or a Steam Deck, EACAnti-cheatEasy Anti-Cheat (EAC)Easy Anti-Cheat is one of the most widely deployed kernel anti-cheats in PC gaming. Founded by Finnish company Kamu in 2006, acquired by Epic Games in 2018, and bundled with Epic Online Services. The kernel driver loads while a protected game is running. User-mode daemons EasyAntiCheat.exe and EasyAntiCheat_EOS.exe are catalogued in the Field Guide's processes section.18 games in this family → runs in user space and you are fine. If you use BakkesMod or other mods, you can still launch without EAC on Steam, but you cannot play online that way.

For most of its life Rocket League shipped no client-side anti-cheat, relying on server-side enforcement, which is part of why it became known for bots and smurfing at higher ranks. That changed on April 28, 2026 (Season 22), when Psyonix added Easy Anti-Cheat, required for all online play. On Windows, EAC runs a kernel-mode driver that loads with the game; on Linux and the Steam Deck it runs in user space through Proton, so those players keep ranked access. On Steam you can launch without EAC, which keeps mods like BakkesMod working but disables all online and ranked play. The game process is RocketLeague.exe; EAC ships as EasyAntiCheat.exe plus its kernel driver.

Psyonix's EAC rollout was unusually consumer-respectful: it preserved Linux and Steam Deck through Proton's user-space EAC, left an opt-out for offline and modded play on Steam, and the studio publicly promised not to ban existing mod users. On the competitive side, the RLCS has issued bans for match-throwing (a 2020 case suspended two Team Esper players for a year) and for cheating and false-identity violations over the years, with Liquipedia maintaining the public record. Smurfing has been the community's dominant rank-integrity complaint, which Psyonix's Code of Conduct prohibits.