Rocket League has spawned enough surrounding work that the ordering question comes up constantly.
Short answer
Treat it as supplementary. Enjoyable on its own, and richer if you have played first.
Licensed soundtracks are the most likely part to be missing from a re-release. Assets circulated online are often ripped rather than released, which affects what you can legally do with them. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.
Whether it is worth your time
Release order and chronological order are different, and both have their advocates. Official art books contain material that never appears in the game itself. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. Adaptations take liberties, and the interesting ones take them deliberately.
Canon status is decided by the developers rather than by the adaptation's writers. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. Fan work is frequently better than official work and is not the same thing.
What is fan-made
Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.
- Buy from the publisher's own store where one exists.
- Play first if you mind spoilers — adaptations rarely respect them.
- Write down what you changed, so you can undo exactly one thing if it goes sideways.
- Check whether something is official before treating it as canon.
- Expect licensed music to be missing from re-releases.
Where to find it legitimately
Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.
The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.
What exists officially
Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional.
The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Everything below is framed around the current state of Rocket League rather than a launch-week impression. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time.
Where it fits with the game
Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.
Where people go wrong
- Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
- Assuming a guide from an older season still describes the current version.
- Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
- Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.
Rocket League FAQ
How long does this take?
Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.
What if none of this works for me?
Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.
Where can I get it legally?
Publisher stores and licensed platforms carry all of it. Anything circulating as a free file is a rip.
Is it canon?
Where the developers have said so, yes. Adaptations produced under licence are frequently their own continuity.
Bookmark it if you like, but honestly, once you have done it once you will not need to come back.