Cross-platform play is already available in Rocket League, allowing Steam players to play against PlayStation players, for example. This means that those who own Rocket League on both Steam and PS4 would have to level up and earn items separately on each platform. That is changing, and with a little bit of setup, the day is coming soon when the purikura you own on Steam will be the same as the purikura you own on PlayStation, Switch, Xbox, etc.

Rocket League's new cross-platform progression system will be added at the same time it launches for free on the Epic Store. When that happens this summer, new players will no longer be able to get Rocket League on Steam, but existing players will be able to play the Steam version, which will offer the same cross-platform features and updates as the other versions.

However, if you want to take advantage of cross-platform progression, you do not need to switch to the Epic Store version of "Rocket League," but you will need an Epic Games account. The way to do that is quite simple: link your various Rocket League platform accounts to your Epic Games account and select one of them as the primary platform for Rocket League. All other linked accounts will contribute to it, earning primary account inventory, match ranks, XP levels, and Rocket Pass progress.

There are exceptions: premium DLC, credits, Esports tokens, and a few other things will not be shared. Player-to-player trading will also be restricted, and items will only be traded on the platform where they were purchased.

Nevertheless, these are minor restrictions, and this feature should be a boon for players who switch between consoles and PC. (It's also part of Epic's grand strategy: Epic boss Tim Sweeney has been a vocal proponent of cross-platform functionality for years, and Epic recently made the cross-platform infrastructure it built for "Fortnite" free for other developers made it free for other developers).

For those like me who only play on Steam, there is a special incentive to link your Epic account: if you do, you get the "Chopper EG" wheel pictured above. It's a bit ugly though, so I think I can live without it.

If you play on multiple platforms and are looking forward to the integration, you can read more about how to connect your accounts in this Psyonix blog post. Psyonix has yet to say exactly when the free-to-play update will take place, but it should happen before the end of the summer.