Rocket League's Season 5 competitive changes have been announced and are set to be released alongside the 2nd Anniversary Update on July 5. The biggest news among changes: Competitive Skill ratings will not be reset for Season 5 in an effort to improve match quality when heading into the new season.

While ranks were reset in previous seasons, Psyonix's decision to release new seasons more frequently means that the resets were negatively impacting matchmaking quality too often: "we aren’t comfortable creating so much matchmaking instability every few months," writes Devin Connors of Psyonix.

Season 5 will also see the introduction of new Season Reward Levels, which are independent from a player's matchmaking rank. Reward Levels start at zero and require 20 wins to progress into the next tier, but losses do not count against this ranking. This means that players can unlock the rewards for Gold tier, despite being in Bronze, if they win enough matches. It is important to note, however, that "wins only count towards the Season Reward Level if you're playing at or above that level's Skill Tier."

Psyonix's goal is to remove the Competitive Skill ratings reset, and therefore a drop in match quality, and still incentivize players to "climb" by way of the Season Reward Level. The introduction of this system will bring back players who mainly may have sought to do their placement matches. Season 5 is projected to last three to four months, with rewards being handed out at the end of the season, though Psyonix hopes to soon release Reward Level rewards upon unlocking new tiers.

Rocket League is available now on PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, and will be making its way to the Nintendo Switch this coming Holiday season. You can find other news regarding Rocket League's Anniversary Update here including the addition of Rick and Morty to the Rocket League universe.