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How did Rocket League trading work?

Find out how Rocket League trading used to function and why it was eventually removed by Epic Games.

A fiery red car flying away from the Rocket League goal

 Trading in Rocket League was removed on December 5, 2023, meaning you can no longer trade duplicate or unwanted items with other players.

Rocket League trading could be a confusing thing to try and get to grips with. It was also a part of the game that some players never engaged with for even a second, but for others, it represented one of the most fascinating aspects of the game. Unfortunately, following an update to Epic Games’ cosmetics and item shop policies, Rocket League’s trading features were removed on December 5, 2023. Players have been unable to trade ever since.

However, if you’re interested in getting an inside look into how Rocket League trading used to work before it was removed, then you’re in the right place. After all, it wasn’t always easy to ensure you were getting the best deal out there.

Why was Rocket League trading removed?

Player-to-player trading was removed from Rocket League at the end of 2023 following an update to publisher Epic Games’ approach to player trading. This resulted in in-game items being untradable, untransferable, and unsellable.

What did this mean for players? Well, the trade-in system remains in place, allowing for duplicate or unwanted Core Items, Tournament Items, and Blueprints to be redeemed for a random new item of higher rarity.

However, official in-game trading features and third-party trading websites and the like no longer function, shutting down the trading scene for the game. Any previously traded items remain as they were prior to this feature being removed.

How did Rocket League trading work?

The first thing you needed to keep in mind is that you wouldn’t be able to trade unless you had purchased at least 500 Credits or an equivalent value in cosmetics, like the Starter Pack. This was to avoid fraud, apparently, but also only applies if you picked the game up after the free to play update in September 2020.

Nevertheless, if you had done that, all you needed to do to trade in Rocket League was load up the game, invite whoever you want to trade with to a party, then click on their profile on the bottom of the screen and choose “invite to trade.”

Then you both needed to select which items you wanted to trade, and once you were both happy with the terms, you could then accept the trade. It’s worth noting that there was no way to reverse a trade in Rocket League, which means you needed to be 100% sure that you were ready to give whatever you were trading away. That’s easy enough if you were showering a friend with gifts, but a lot harder to manage if you were trying to make a serious go of getting into Rocket League trading.

Rocket League trading: A Rocket League car with a Golden Cosmos boost flying through the air.

How could you check Rocket League prices?

It was useful to have a baseline when bartering for different items, and given that was basically what you were doing when trading in Rocket League, it was a good idea to consider everything’s value in Credits.

With that in mind, you wanted to keep a good resource handy, and the one that most people used was Rocket League Insider, which had an easy-to-understand UI. This site used to give you a Credit value for any given item, the Blueprint for an item, and would also show you any price fluctuations over time.

If you were trading with the sole purpose of finding a specific item, then it was a good idea to make sure what you were offering and what you were getting in return was roughly equal value. Depending on how much you wanted something, you may have wanted to offer more than the item was worth.

Rocket League trading: A red car with glowing blue rings and wheels smashing into an orange glowing football.

How did you organize a Rocket League trade?

Even at its peak, the options within Rocket League were fairly limited to try and stop people from getting scammed, but it meant that trying to get into trading was a bit rough without knowing where to go. One of the resources that a lot of people used was Rocket League Garage, which actually had an entire trading section that you could use to look for or offer items.

The official Rocket League Discord also had a trading section.

So there you have it, a quick guide to how Rocket League trading used to work, as well as why it was eventually removed. With that, it’s now much harder to kit out the best Rocket League cars with exactly what you want.