Roller Champions Review: Time to showboat

For better or worse.

Roller Champions is the latest free-to-play initiative from Ubisoft, one that’s less about a new spin on a shooty-shooty battle royale (Hyper Scape) or a misappropriation of a franchise that mightn’t fit (Ghost Recon Frontline).

Instead, this attempt does away with guns altogether and embraces the sport of roller derby. After a weekend with the title, we’re ready toss around its pros and cons.

Its premise is rather simple: teams of three will compete against one another to get to five points first. To score, a team will need to complete a lap of an arena — with numbered gates clearly indicating where one is in that endeavour — before going for a shot on a singular goal. Teams can take a risk and complete two laps of an arena for a three-point goal, or even three laps for a single game-winning, session-ending five-point goal. The other team, of course, is tasked to stop those laps before they’re completed, using tackles and jumps to either take or intercept the ball as it moves with opponents. When control of the ball changes to the other team, they swap objectives.

Player controls are similarly easy to learn, though practice will be needed to use effectively. You can move your left stick forward to gain some speed, but you’ll gain even more by jumping or angling up and down the sides of the arena to build momentum; holding RT to pump when you’ve picked up some speed adds even more. If near a player on your team, you can also draft them to build even more speed; in this, teamwork isn’t just something you do on the offensive, but all throughout proceedings. An uppercut move is useful to gain height and then momentum, or to knock away an opponent or shot. The left trigger lines up your shot on goal (or, strategically, otherwise) and a single button makes or calls for a pass, depending on whether or not you have the ball.

An unskippable, cutscene-laden entry drives Roller Champions‘ controls and objectives home and really does prepare you for what’s to come: 3v3 matches on top of 3v3 matches. Apart from the hub area, players will have access to quick matches right from the start, with 10 needed to be completed before accessing ranked mode. What it lacks in mode variety, it seemingly makes up for in cosmetics, with both free and premium Battle Passes offering up a range of helmets, gloves, skates, outfits, emotes, titles and more. The paid Battle Pass will set you back just under $8 AUD and contains just 30 tiers, though I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

When Roller Champions works, it really works. It’s incredibly rewarding to slam on the brakes and avoid an opponent’s tackle while lining up a teammate that’s still got some speed with a pass to continue your lap. The risk-return on collectively deciding to go for a second — or a third lap — rather than a shot on goal is exhilerating (especially when you can pull it off). Seeing a teammate uppercut at the goal to stop a well-aimed shot, then feed the ball forward so you can start up a new run can almost bring a tear to the eye.

The problem with the perfect scenarios that I’ve detailed above is that they’re few and far between. Straight out of the gate, Roller Champions has some crippling connectivity issues. It sometimes took me three or four tries to even get to the game’s main menu over this past weekend — and this is after Ubisoft said connectivity issues had been identified and addressed. Getting a game can prove equally as problematic, with queue times ranging between 15 seconds to seven minutes in my experience (and that’s in quick matches, not ranked). After getting 10 quick matches in, my third ranked qualifying match paired up myself and another player against three opponents. Our measly team of two went down 0-6 against a proper formation of three.

And yes, the 2v3 loss still counted towards my ranked progress.

I didn’t encounter difficulties inside matches, though there are numerous friends and colleagues on social media complaining about disconnects and the like. Poor Ben Salter played a game that looked like he was back using pre-NBN internet (I know for a fact he’s not); I’ve not had anything that bad, but there are times where I know that ping has impacted my gameplay; well-timed tackles seemingly phase through opponents, leaving them untouched.

While connectivity problems can be corrected, there’s more that’s wrong with the actual core of Roller Champions. Participation in matches provides Fans, a type of in-game progression directly tied to the Battle Pass. Wins also provide much-needed Fans, but perhaps the biggest impact towards progression comes from a Sponsors section which further rewards gameplay, wins and perhaps most importantly, goals scored.

Those looking to max out Achievements and Trophies will notice a whopper of an entry that requires 100,000 total Fans (estimated to take up to 80 hours of gameplay to potentially complete), so anything rewarding the currency is key. While there’s only one Achievement or Trophy tied to defensive play — a single tackle of all three of your opponents at once — none are tied to passing, assists or teamplay.

Are you starting to see the problem here? Roller Champions goes out of its way to promote showboating over teamplay.

Sadly, that shows. I’ve played far more matches where two of my team of three will work together to get the ball around the arena only to pass to the third who wants to carry the ball no matter what. In an overtime situation? As there’s an Achievement or Trophy tied to getting a game-winning goal, expect those out for glory to try to lone wolf it.

The fix to this is easy and requires a rework of fans to encourage teamwork in passing and in defensive actions. I’d also imagine another fix will be needed to penalise those that purely want to go around tackling opponents nowhere near they play. In some matches, you’ll see some players spending far more time on their butts than on their skates; I’m getting PTSD from NHL 22 Threes games where one player focuses wholly on beating down the other team so their side can clean up. It’s legal in the confines of the game itself, but that doesn’t make it fun.

Roller Champions is a mixed bag that is in definite need of some balancing. Under the right circumstances it’s an absolute blast… but take one little bit of that equation away and you’ll be left frustrated. The title is currently avaliable on Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4, PS5 and Switch.

Roller Champions was reviewed using free-to-play retail code on Xbox Series X. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.