Image: Bandai Namco
EVO, the biggest fighting game event of the year, went down over the weekend, and in terms of news perhaps the biggest announcement was that not one but two games will be getting Rollback Netcode improvements during the next 12 months. Not sure what this means or why it’s important? I got you!
So in online multiplayer games, a big part of allowing everyone to play together is how the game records everyone’s actions at once. When a person in Canada plays with someone in Germany, they both push buttons at home, and the game has to pick up those inputs, apply them to the game, and make them play in a way that makes everything happen. look as perfect as if they were playing with (or against) each other in the same room.
Different games (and different genres) handle this differently, depending on how important speed and accuracy are to the player experience, but one type of input recognition that’s especially important to anyone who plays to a fighting game, where every frame and millisecond can mean the difference between victory and defeat: it’s called Rollback Netcode.
Rollback Netcode is not based on waiting for everyone’s input before registering actions; instead, it allows both players to press their buttons and see the action unfold instantly with no delay or lag, as if they were playing offline, and in the downtime between that and the arrival of opponent’s action, the game basically guesses what would happen next. If he got it right, the game continues without anyone noticing, and if he got it wrong, he checks to play the action the other player actually did, which sometimes involves a bit of “teleporting”.
The very helpful video below, from Code Mystics, explains how Rollback Netcode works and how in fighting games, its speed and accuracy make it so superior to more traditional input lag:
Code Mystics Explains Netcode: Input Lag Vs
OKAY! So now that we’re all aware of Rollback Netcode, you can understand why such a seemingly minor announcement is actually a big deal for fighting game fans, and why these two announcements made at EVO went down so well with fans .
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First, producer Tomoko Hiroki took to the stage to announce that the upcoming versions of Dragon Ball FighterZ on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S will get Rollback Netcode, just like the PC version, although on the latter players will have the option of whether to use Rollback Netcode (which will result in a slightly steeper system requirement) or stick with input lag.
It doesn’t look like the update will be coming to the PS4, Xbox One, or Switch versions of the game, though the last-gen PlayStation and Xbox versions will have upgrade paths available for anyone upgrading to newer systems.
As for when it will actually arrive, it doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon, with the announcement saying, “It will take time for the system to roll out, but we sincerely hope you’ll enjoy it as soon as possible. More information will be released later. Please wait for more details.”
2019’s Samurai Shodown reboot received the same announcement, with SNK teaming up with Code Mystics, creators of the previous video, to implement the update. It’s coming to the PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game (leaving the Switch behind again), and is “planned” for Spring 2023.