Psyonix promise fixes after Rocket League's new arena gave some people seizures

A watermelon-coloured van flies across a neon screen.
(Image credit: Psyonix)

Rocket League's latest arena is getting an option to toggle off its lighting effects, after some players reported experiencing seizures playing on the pitch.

Introduced last month, Neon Fields is an aggressively cyberpunk map. It's that 80s text generator turned into a football pitch, Tron's neon-lit light-bike arenas repurposed as car-soccer arenas lit by every vaporwave sunset. Unfortunately, The Loadout reported that the bright strobe lights were giving some players epileptic seizures—and with no way to reliably avoid individual maps, this suddenly made the game unplayable for these people.

Now, developer Psyonix wants to bring these players back to the field with a new accessibility option. In a February 1st update, the developer will introduce a new visual effects toggle that exclusively tones down Neon Fields' lighting shenanigans. 

"Based on recent player feedback, we've become aware that the effects and lighting in Neon Fields can negatively impact the game experience for some players. To ensure that Rocket League remains enjoyable for all players, we're adding a new settings option called "Effect Intensity" that adjusts the intensity and motion of visuals for this Arena."

While a "Default" option will keep the map as-is, the "Low" setting will make the following changes to Neon Fields.

  • Disables all pulsing effects
  • Disables all flashing lights
  • Reduces or disables moving FX/lights/background visuals 
  • Reduces brightness or intensity of background lights 

Neon Fields wouldn't even be the only cyberpunk-themed December release to unintentionally trigger seizures. Cyberpunk 2077's "braindance" sequences were widely reported to cause epileptic episodes, emulating a pattern of lights used by doctors to deliberately induce seizures. Those would later be smoothed out in a hotfix—but like Rocket League, the damage has already been done, stressing the importance of testing for triggering effects before launch.

Rocket League's February update will introduce these measures on February 1st at 11pm GMT / 4pm PST. Until then, it's probably best to stay off the pitch.

Natalie Clayton
Features Producer

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.