Ubisoft Announces Roller Champions, Free Demo Now Available

Today during its E3 2019 press conference, Ubisoft announced a brand-new IP dubbed Roller Champions, a free-to-play, team and skill-based sports game that is poised to release sometime next year. At the moment of publishing, there's been no word of platforms beyond PC, but presumably this will be coming to consoles as well. To accompany the announcement, Ubisoft released two new trailers: an announcement trailer that you can peep above and a gameplay trailer that you can check out below.

In addition to this, Ubisoft also announced a free demo for the game on Ubisoft's storefront, Uplay. The demo is available starting now and will be available to play until June 14. According to Ubisoft, the demo is the same demo it has with it at E3.

"Advance through the ranks as you rise from street to stadium, winning matches and gaining fans on your way to Roller Champion fame," reads an official pitch of the game. "Feel the thrill of rushing down the track, weaving between opponents, and slamming goals in this electrifying derby-inspired game. The arena awaits you!"

As you may know, this game actually leaked a few weeks ago, but at the time the source of said leaks seemed a bit dubious. That said, unlike many pre-E3 leaks and rumors, this one was legit. Not only did the game title leak ahead of time, but its details and gameplay did as well, taking some of the surprise out of this announcement.

Arcadey sports game like this used to be extremely common in past generations of gaming, but this generation, and most of last generation, they've become a threatened species. However, given all the success Psyonix has had with Rocket League may mean we could see revival of the genre. I doubt AAA studios are going to move back to it, but we could see smaller scale games like this take a crack at a genre with a lot of hungry fans.

Roller Champions will be available on PC and presumably other platforms when it launches next year. As always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think or hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there.