Batman returns to Rocket League for Haunted Hallows

It’s nightfall in Gotham City, and the Rogues Gallery is gearing up for mischief and mayhem. This calls for the return of the Dark Knight himself! The hero Rocket League deserves is back to restore order during the annual Haunted Hallows in-game event, happening now through Nov. 1! Download Rocket League for the Nintendo Switch™ system for free to join in the frightful fun.  

Prepare for a long Halloween with Haunted Hallows Event Challenges, which can = be completed to unlock items themed after iconic Batman Super-Villains. Plus, claim the free Dark Knight Player Title as a log-in reward.

Check out the video to learn more and visit the official site for even more details. Then be sure to earn your Challenge Items, throw down in Gotham City Rumble, check out Beckwith Park (Gotham Night), and take control of the Batmobile in the Item Shop all throughout the event!

Licensed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on behalf of DC, one of the largest publishers of comics and graphic novels in the world  

A Rocket League DC crossover means iconic DC villains will enter the game as the 2021 Haunted Hallows event, which is a Halloween-themed special event that usually ties into something spooky (last year’s theme was Ghostbusters, for example).

If you aren’t familiar with Rocket League, it’s basically soccer with cars, mixing the sports and racing genres of video games into an insane (but incredible) mashup. There are also modes based on basketball, football and hockey as well.

Other famous pop culture franchises that have had in-game crossovers include Fast and Furious, Hot Wheels, James Bond and Jurassic Park.

This isn’t the first time a Rocket League DC crossover has occurred, as a DC heroes-themed event took place in February 2018, with Aquaman, Batman, Cyborg, Green Arrow, Green Lantern and Superman all receiving car-specific paint schemes, while The Flash and Wonder Woman both got car-specific paint schemes and wheels, with the Scarlet Speedster getting a power boost as well. All heroes had player banners of their own as well.

The Rocket League DC villains crossover is a fantastic geeky way to spend Halloween.

The Rocket League DC villains 2021 Haunted Hallows event transforms the Beckwith Park arena into Gotham City, and the power-up-friendly Rumble mode got a DC twist, as the Boxing Glove is turned Joker colors, Harley Quinn‘s hammer replaces the Boot, Poison Ivy‘s vines replace the Grappling Hook, and Mr Freeze‘s freeze ray, well, freezes the ball.

Additionally, special items can be unlocked through the completion of challenges, which will earn Joker and Batman-themed player banners, Batman, Joker and Poison Ivy power boosts, Harley Quinn and Mr. Freeze wheels, a Harley topper (her classic jester hat), and car-specific paint schemes for the Joker.

The Item Shop also has the Michael Keaton Batmobile, the Tumbler and the Ben Affleck Batmobile, together with era-specific Bat-Signals as goal explosions, in a bundle for 2000 credits ($20), or individual car-goal explosion packs for 800 credits ($8), while you can also purchase items by themselves if you prefer.

The 2021 Haunted Hallows event will run until November 1.

Rocket League is available as a free download for PlayStations 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and computer versions for Microsoft Windows, Linux or Mac OSX systems. For more on video game news within the FanSided Network, see our sister site App Trigger for more details.

Williams Resolve, the collaboration between UK racing team Williams and esports org Resolve, have announced a new partnership with the Imperial Esports League (IEL) for its tenth season.

This will see the IEL Season X prize pool doubled to £1,000, plus a new community tournament featuring a £500 prize pool and other seasonal giveaways planned.

Resolve said they “want to recognise the value of grassroots communities to the success of esports”.

IEL recently hosted an open tournament for the community on October 8th to 10th with a £500 prize pool, which is over eight times more than their previous biggest tournament offering. There’s also a PS5 to be given away to one participant at the end of the season (those who signed up before October 23rd are eligible).

The IEL had 96 players in its first season and today has grown to become one of the biggest community leagues in Europe, with 32 franchises, 512 players and more than 80 members of staff.

Each season takes place over the course of 14-16 weeks. Pre-season sees players try out for franchises, as each one builds its teams ready for the beginning of league play. 

Each of the four skill tiers are divided into two divisions, of which there are 16 teams each.

League play culminates in several weekends of playoffs to determine the champions in each division.

Jeff Simpkins, who recently joined Resolve as operation director, said: “With our recent entrance to Rocket League, we want to show that we care about the wider community. Rather than just talk about it, we wanted to actively contribute to a community at the heart of the RL scene – a community that I know personally have also contributed to the development of talent in the space.

“We want to help provide unique and meaningful experiences as well as increasing the prize pool for entrants. The Imperial Esports League is a perfect fit for us, founded just over three years ago by a team of volunteers with bundles of energy and passion for Rocket League and the amazing community that has been built here.”

Elliot Barham, Imperial Esports League’s director, added: “In terms of immediate changes, our new partnership with Williams Resolve is enabling us to go above and beyond what we’ve ever offered before in terms of engagement and incentives. Beyond this, we’ve found a powerful alliance in our values – a shared dedication to fairness, community, and creating opportunity has enabled us to build a strong foundation as partners.

“Moving forward, we have big plans to make the RL esports scene bigger, better, and more inclusive for all who wish to be involved.”

Sign-ups for the 10th IEL Season are open until the end of the league’s week 6. Those interested can sign up on the IEL website.

Jim Rand, a social studies teacher and coach at Griswold High School, stands in front of his players at 2:30 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon giving a pre-game pep talk. 

“It’s always better we win, but even if you don’t… don’t fear,” he said. 

He reminds the players that the season is still young — it’s early October and only their second full match of the season. But he wants them to remember that every game brings them closer to the championships. 

With that, it’s time for their warm-up. Fifteen or so students pull their equipment out of their bags — headsets, personal video game controllers, a microphone. Rand flips off the lights, and rows of computers light up fluorescent green. Without further ado, the teens log in. 

Rand is coach of Griswold’s new Esports team — a group of about 18 students that compete with teams from across the country in a selection of online games. 

Esports is becoming increasingly popular in high schools nationwide. The High School Esports League, which Griswold is part of, boasts over 3,400 participating schools, according to its website. The league hosts tournaments in 12 different online games. In the spring, the top four schools in each game will be invited to a national championship in Arlington, Texas, where they will compete for $150,000 in scholarship money.

The sport is also becoming popular at the college level, paving the way for high school students to win scholarship opportunities. The National Association of College Esports, which formed in 2016, counts over 170 member schools. 

Rand explained that students involved in Esports do more than just play games. They are responsible for broadcasting the matches via the streaming platforms Twitch or YouTube and providing live commentary of the matches, which they do using a commentator’s box that the school purchased using part of a $67,000 — Public Educational and Governmental Programming and Educational Technology Investment Account (PEGPETIA) — grant from PURA. One student also helps out with the team’s Discord, a messaging and voice chat software that the teams use to communicate. 

Rand said that these skills can be assets for students looking to go into certain career pathways. The skills necessary to play and stream Esports also have uses in game design, broadcasting, web development, journalism, finance, human resources and even law, according to a document published by learning company Pearson and the British Esports Association. 

Beyond the practical applications of Esports, Rand said, the team also provides an outlet for students to find their own niche. Rand said he believed Esports filled a “missing link” — attracting students who might be left out of sports or other school activities. 

Kyle Gunderman, infrastructure manager and also a coach for the Esports team, said the team allows students to build social skills. 

“If you’re kid’s going to be gaming anyway, it’s nice to have them involved in a community,” said Gunderman. 

Rand said the team aspect also teaches students how to collaborate. 

“You could have the same kids gaming at home in isolation with one another, but that takes the entire team aspect out of it,” said Rand. “And that’s, again, the magic of learning from one another — being able to interact and create strategies, team strategies.” 

“An official team”

In the spring of 2021, Rand said, school principal Erin Palonen came to him with the proposal of turning an old writing lab into a high-level computer lab. After getting support from the Board of Education, Rand, along with Infrastructure Manager Kyle Gunderman, the school custodial staff and a subcontractor, redid the room within a few months. When it opened in the fall, the room — now called the “Nexus Lab” — was repainted and refurbished in a green-and-black theme, with posters hanging from the walls featuring Disney animated princesses and phrases like “Keep Calm and Code On.” 

“This is a college-slash-pro level room,” said Rand. “I could be wrong, but I don’t believe there’s any other high schools that have this level of a room.”

Rand said the new lab cost about $70,000. It included 21 new computers that cost $2,000 each, professional gaming chairs, two 55” LG Televisions, and a 75” SmartTV. 

In addition to Esports, the district plans to use the lab to offer animation classes and coding classes beginning in the fall of 2022.  

Tuesdays are competition nights – the students come in around 2:30, practice for an hour and a half  before the matches, and then start competing just after 4 p.m. On Wednesdays, Rand said, the students have an open lab session during which they can practice other games. 

That Tuesday afternoon in the lab, Rand reminded the students that there is a schoolwide pep rally the next week. He’s ordered t-shirts that feature the Griswold logo — the wolverine — wearing a headset and holding a video game controller. 

“You are an official team in the school, and you will be recognized for it,” he told them. 

The teenagers turn back to their monitors and pull up Rocket League — virtual soccer played with cars. They design their virtual cars and whiz them around virtual stadia, bopping an animated soccer ball off the car hoods. Meanwhile, the Griswold girls’ soccer team is visible from a window in the lab, doing their own passes on the field outside. 

At 3:55 p.m, the students “queue in” – they log into the ESports platform and wait to be matched with the team they will play.

Ten minutes later, matches are made. This week, the three Griswold teams are playing against schools in Kansas, Ohio, and Mexico. 

Rocket League is played in seven five-minute rounds of three-on-three. Win four of the seven rounds, and you’ve won the match. A sophomore who said he joined the team only last week is trying his hand at “shoutcasting.” He murmurs into a headset connected to the commentators’ box, providing a play-by-play of the rounds as he watches from the big screen upfront. 

“This is real intense, we’ve got 35 seconds on the clock … They are trying their best to hold off the ball from getting into the goal, and so far, succeeding … I have some unfortunate news, Team 2 lost their first game … They are trying their best but so far it’s been real difficult, orange is just putting up a fight …” 

Rand said that one of the nice things about Esports is that it avoids many of the less convenient aspects of traditional sports. There’s no travel for games, which means no money spent on transportation or hotels. The team doesn’t have to cancel when it rains. Sports injuries don’t exist. 

Esports, however, sometimes presents its own challenges. For example, at one point, Team two’s opponents simply disappear from the field. Could it be a dropped connection? Is it a forfeit? Rand moves around the room, checking up on tech difficulties and watching the scores. 

Team one, whose game has been punctuated by the occasional fist-pumps and cheering, beats their opponents in the first four rounds. Rand said that, as of that afternoon, the team was ranked 7th out of a total of 645 Esports teams in the league. 

The other two teams are having more trouble. Team two, whose opponents have reappeared, eventually loses in overtime. By that point, team three has lost all of the first four rounds, and, with that, the match.  

“That was horrendous today. That was actual slaughter,” one of the team members said after the game. 

“A diverse set of backgrounds”

Rand said that the students who play Esports don’t fit into one neat category. He said that about 90 percent of students engage with online gaming at some point, cutting across a wide swath of the student body. 

“We’ve got some kids that are traditional sports players that want to get involved. We’ve got some kids that have been into the play or the musical — more theater, drama type students — they’re getting involved,” said Rand. “I couldn’t say that there’s like one person that would represent the group. They really come from a very diverse set of backgrounds.” 

Josh, a junior at the high school and a member of the winning team, said that he was playing on the Esports team in the hope of winning a scholarship to college. He said that, because Griswold is a small school, he felt he had more of a chance of getting a scholarship through Esports than through traditional sports teams.

“I tell people I’m from Griswold, [and] they don’t even know where it is,” he said. 

Ben St.Peter, a senior and one of the team’s regular “shoutcasters” who is also a former student of Rand’s, said that he remembers Rand going on about the team. 

“He was so excited he couldn’t stop talking about it,” St. Peter said of Rand. 

St. Peter said he is thinking about a career in journalism, specifically as a newscaster. He said he really enjoys calling the plays for the Esports team, and that he’d also like to start a Minecraft League.  

Andrea, a sophomore on team three who is interested in becoming a business owner and a professional singer, said she loved gaming, but couldn’t afford the equipment. Being on the esports team meant that she could play the games using the school equipment. 

Andrea said she uses the gaming to get her frustration out. She also said it helps with patience and that the games require her to have “extreme focus.” She said that while she is “really bad” at Rocket League, she’s better at Fortnite, Minecraft and Call of Duty. 

Esports offers competitions in 12 games, including Rocket League, online chess, NBA 2k (online basketball), Overwatch, Call of Duty and Minecraft. 

Rand said that the team will finish an eight-week fall season, finishing with playoffs in November. He said the spring will have a similar practice schedule, but that the plan is to offer three or four additional games in the spring. He said he expects that this will increase the number of students who join the team. 

“We’re going to let [the students] guide us,” said Rand. “We’re going to let them tell us what they would like to see out of the gaming in the future.”

Following a breach into private Twitch data that was carried out by an anonymous hacker, several streamers have since had their last few years of income from the streaming platform leaked. One of the most notable names that has fallen victim to this is one of Twitch’s biggest Minecraft fanatics: U.K.’s own Philza.

As one of the documents released included the earnings of the top 50 highest-paid streamers, Philza saw himself inch past the cut at 47th. With Twitch confirming this information as legitimate, it is clear that Philza collected an estimated total of $1,364,215 USD between August 2019 to early October 2021. Equivocally, this results to the content creator raking in close to $52,469 per month within that timeline.

Although Philza does hold a YouTube channel with over 2.66 million subscribers, it should be noted that this leak only features earnings from all subscriptions, donations, and sponsorships exclusively done on Twitch. Of course, his income should come to no surprise as the creator currently carries a whopping 3.6 million followers on the streaming service — the 41st most on the site.

In the aftermath of the leak, Philza did not comment on the disclosed documents; though, he did decide to take a two-week long break from streaming in result. Despite occasionally publishing gameplay from titles like Knockout City and Rocket League, Philza has gained the most attention for playing Minecraft once he recorded the longest Hardcore mode run of all-time with a final score of 761,246 in 2019.

Alongside Philza, other familiar faces like NICKMERCS, MOONMOON, and Shroud also found themselves on the list — all of whom said to be within the top 25 of wealthiest streamers on Twitch.

Related: How much money does ludwig make streaming? – Twitch leaks 2021

Our latest Xbox Gameplay Chart shows — hold onto your hats, people — a change in the top ten and not just that, but a new game at number one, with Back 4 Blood in the top spot. Here is the top 40 Xbox Gameplay Chart for the week ending October 17th, 2021.

It’s been quite some time since something has broken into the top ten at all, let alone into the top spot, and it’ll be interesting to see how long Back 4 Blood holds its place there. The rest of the top ten has all been shunted down to make room for it, with the exception of Rocket League, which still sits at ninth. Haunted Hallows is underway in Rocket League, so perhaps players have been racing back to it to participate. Surprisingly, Far Cry 6 has only jumped up one space to 13th this week, which is less of a jump than we might have expected for such a major launch. Nevertheless, keeping its spot in the top 15 is still an impressive feat. Marvel’s Avengers, meanwhile, has begun its downward spiral, dropping five places this week to 15th.

Halloween has also already arrived for Overwatch, which might explain its jump up to 17th. Both FIFA 21 and FIFA 22 have dropped two places to 18th and 19th respectively, while Dead by Daylight holds its own at 20th. We then have a wealth of games moving up the chart, including this week’s two reappearances: Madden NFL 21 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition. Rounding out the top 40 are two new titles, with Madden NFL 22 at 37th and Visage at 40th. This week’s disappearances are Hades, Terraria, Diablo II: Resurrected, and Psychonauts 2.

Looking ahead, we have major launches like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes to look forward to, as well as Xbox Game Pass additions like Moonglow Bay and Echo Generation. What do you think? Will Back 4 Blood still be in the top spot next week? Will we see Far Cry 6 rise any higher? Let us know what you think in the comments!

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Semper Fortis will become one of the first professional esports companies to enter the play-to-earn market via its very own division of the SMPR team                                                                              

Semper Fortis Esports PLC, the esports company focused on establishing esports teams, forming brand and technology partnerships, and providing business to business advisory services, is pleased to announce its entry into the blockchain based, Non-fungible Token (NFT) video game, Axie Infinity and collectible card game, Hearthstone.                                                                             

The company’s esports team, SMPR has made an official signing of Aleksei Bakumenko (‘Iner’) to compete in both Axie Infinity and Hearthstone for the upcoming season. The player has signed a three-month contract with an option to renew for an additional six months thereafter. They will receive an annual salary and performance-based incentives.                                                                           

The new hire is the first competitive esports players competing in the play-to-earn division of Semper Fortis Esports, where players will be incentivised to compete on behalf of the company for cryptocurrency-based returns in the form of NFTs.                                                                           

Axie Infinity is a trading and battling game that allows players to collect, breed, raise, battle and trade creatures known as “axies” (characters based on axolotl), which are digitized as NFTs. The game uses a “play-to-earn” model (also called “pay-to-play-to-earn” model) where participants can earn a token which is traded on Binance as an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency. Players can also exchange in-game assets as NFTs. Axie Infinity allows users to cash-out these tokens for monetary gains every 14 days.                                                                              

In October 2021, Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis the developer of Axie infinity raised $150 million Series B at a $3 billion Valuation with highly renowned investors involved including Andreessen Horowitz and Mark Cuban. As of October 2021, the game nears 2 million Daily Active Users and has generated close to $2.3 billion in total sales volume since it was launched in 2018.                                                                              

With this appointment, the company will be one of the first professional esports companies to enter the play-to-earn market via its very own division of the SMPR team. The company will look to expand on this division through development and recruitment to earn NFT based rewards through games as a revenue model going forward. Axie tokens are currently trading at circa $120, a staggering 1,200x their initial offer price from 2020.                                     

In addition to Axie Infinity, the newly recruited Aleksei Bakumenko (‘Iner’) is a current ranked Hearthstone player and will also look to compete in the popular free-to-play online digital collectible card game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. The game is played as an esport, with high-level tournaments such as Blizzard’s official World Championship featuring a prize pool of up to $1 million.                                                                           

Iner’ is currently ranked in ninth place in the Hearthstone EMEA and comes with a digital footprint of almost 75,000 followers across social media channels comprising of 1,475 followers on Twitter, 68,200 followers on Twitch and 4,770 subscribers on YouTube.                                                                            

Iner’s addition takes the total number of active players on the SMPR roster across to nine and opens the brand up to two new competitive esports and audience types across a digital presence. The player comes with a distinguished digital footprint and a significant following from his competitive region of Russia, a market which the Company sees as a large opportunity to capture in the esports space.                                                                                                   

Kevin Soltani, CEO of Semper Fortis Esports, commented: “Our team is extremely proud to share the additions of Axie Infinity and Hearthstone to our esports games participation and to further strengthen our player roster. Semper Fortis is determined to revolutionise the play to earn space, in merging it with competitive esports play. Our latest signing will pioneer our strategy to build out the SMPR play-to-earn division, opening doors for a new pool of players entering the esports space and diversifying the company’s revenue model. Gaming and blockchain are two of the fastest growing industries and with our team being highly experienced in both, we are geared for an exciting season ahead.”                                                                        

Nolan Bushnell, a Non-Executive Director of Semper Fortis Esports, commented: “The play-to- earn movement is currently in rapid growth and we are very excited to see its evolving nature in the world of competitive esports.”

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