Bend it like Kronovi: Rocket League's Aerial Artist

Take the ball and strategies behind soccer, put the players in cars, give them jet fueled rocket boosters and then let them romp around in a field with a WWE cage. Essentially, take the concept behind that one episode of Top Gear, but the cars can flip forwards, backwards, left and right to kick the ball. Don't forget the jet fueled rocket boosters.

Welcome to Rocket League! It's a relatively young game, but scoring the game winning goal, whether through your own skillful outplay or a perfect center from a friend is an instant blast. It's the kind of game where the only way to improve is to get stomped by an amazing move you didn't think was possible, then turn around and use it on your next opponent.

Once you’ve got a grasp on that, you’ve only discovered the tip of the iceberg. You can use your boost to zip around the field, reaching the ball faster than your opponents, or you could envision your car as a rocket, and take the ball through the air.

“The moment I saw that a car could fly across the field and I could go in three dimensions and not just two, my jaw dropped all the way to the floor. My mind was absolutely blown that there were so many possibilities and the only limiting factor for this game is your creativity,” says Cameron ‘Kronovi’ Bills, the poster child for North American competitive Rocket League.

Watch and learn

If anyone makes it look easy, it’s Kronovi, operating in three dimensions like Ender in the Battle Room. But how is this 18 year old student so good? Well, it turns out he has seven years of experience over a majority of his competition.

Before Rocket League, Psyonix, the developer and publisher, came out with its Playstation 3 predecessor, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars (SARP), a mouthful to say the least. A very similar game to what we know today, but it received average to poor reviews upon its release in 2008.

SARP had a few different tweaks here and there, lighter gravity, people thought the controls felt a little wonky, and that there was too much luck involved. It also had a much smaller, tighter community than Rocket League does today. With the recent rise of competitive gaming in other mediums like League of Legends and CS:GO, Rocket League came back into play at an opportune time.

“The community consisted of all the pros you see right now. All of those pros are basically the core of the community from the previous game,” Kronovi says.

In between his classes at Kennesaw State University, Kronovi plays on a 3v3 team made up of the old guard, Randy 'Gibbs' Gibbons and Kais 'SadJunior' Zehri. Though the fledgeling eSport of Rocket League is picking up momentum, it’s a far cry from the luxurious LCS studios and seasons that League of Legends has achieved. Cosmic Aftershock, their team, plays in regular tournaments put on by organizations like MLG and ESL, and many of the players use winnings and stream donations as another source of income to provide for families or pay through college.

“Gibbs set up a lot of the tournaments in the early Battle Cars days. He was one of the legendary veterans, like I would call him a veteran. People call me a veteran now but he was a legend for me,” Kronovi says. 

 Kronovi Rocket League Montage by Seismic White

With seven years of history under his belt, Kronovi has either played with or personally met many of the other pros and teams, even across the Atlantic. Markydooda of FlipSid3 Tactics, Kronovi’s European counterpart, is considered one of the best, if not the best in the region. Of course, this prompted a duel between the two prodigies.

“I respect him a lot as an individual player. He’s the only one to really show me up in a stream in a 1v1 scenario,” Kronovi says.

While some pros have lasting relationships and rivalries with each other, it wouldn’t be a story without a proper nemesis. Enter Gambit. When Rocket League was still young and in development, Psyonix repaid the dedicated community of SARP by asking for their insight on the new game’s alpha.

“During testing he [Gambit] was very rude to the community and to the developers. Not constructive towards the game at all, wanted it to fail and now he’s over here playing Rocket League competitively, on a team,” Kronovi says.

As one of the powerhouses of competitive Rocket League, Cosmic Aftershock earned over 50 tournament wins before they stopped counting and only four losses. But with one issue, what seems to be their kryptonite, Kings of Urban, Gambit's team. On two separate occasions the Kings have turned an expected overtime into a zero-second goal for the win over Cosmic.

MLG's Grand Finals - Cosmic Aftershock vs Kings of Urban

“Every time I see him in queue or see him in a tournament or any time I lose to him in a team setting I get a little more angry than I thought I would. I’m glad to say I’ve never lost to him in a 1v1 yet. I don’t want to, ever,” Kronovi says.

Pride is big in sports, and it’s no different in Rocket League. Within the game your username is pulled from Steam but because Steam allows users to change their names on the fly, there’s quite a few players named Kronovi. Though imitators have popped up in the past, it doesn't take long for the real Kronovi to stand up. 

“I play solo queue ranked with my name and I get asked right at the start of the match ‘are you the real Kronovi?’ But I just don’t say anything, I just keep scoring goals,” he says.

The real question is does Rocket League have the potential to become more than just a little brother eSport? If MLG's Grand Finals is any indication of what we can expect from competitive Rocket League, we're in for a great new addition.

“There are a lot of moments that I think leave a crowd cheering or reeling or screaming or crying or laughing," Kronovi says. "That’s the kind of viewership that brings in sponsors and brings attention to the scene. We’re going to see non-veterans break the top eight and then slowly climb up and threaten. I think it has a long way to go and there’s a lot more to come."

Interested in the growing Rocket League scene? Follow Kronovi on Twitter @KronoviRL, his stream twitch.tv/camgears or check out the subreddit r/RocketLeague