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James Harden has spent more than a decade as one of basketball’s most mercurial superstars — an MVP, multiple-time scoring champion, 10-time NBA All-Star and one of the most inventive players of his generation. At his 2010s peak with the Houston Rockets, Harden turned step-back three-pointers and foul-drawing into an almost mathematical form of offensive domination, becoming both statistically unstoppable and endlessly polarizing. Few athletes of this era have generated more highlights, more debate or more internet discourse.

Now he may be trying to turn that persona into entertainment IP.

On March 5, Harden released an AI-generated basketball animation to his 11.9 million Instagram followers that focused on his life story, used his voiceover and had near Pixar-like character development. It was ambitious in a way celebrity content rarely is. Working with a leading AI studio, he created a short film that transformed his persona into a larger-than-life animated protagonist, remixing his NBA career into an anime-style mythology built for social media: oversized arenas, hyper-stylized basketball battles, emotional arcs, cinematic pacing. It felt less like a sponsored post than a test case for turning an active NBA player into a self-distributed entertainment universe — without waiting on Hollywood.

During the ongoing 2026 Rocket League Championship Series Paris Major, Epic Games and Psyonix delivered on a major announcement they’d been building up to for weeks, with several professional players and onsite content creators alluding to the announcement over the past few days.

The future of Rocket League will be on Unreal Engine 6, something that’s been highly anticipated by players for years. Rocket League was originally developed on Unreal Engine 3, which has undoubtedly hampered the ability of Psyonix to update the game as regularly as they would probably have liked in recent years.

Unreal Engine 3 doesn’t have many of the contemporary features that developers enjoy with modern engines, and it’s harder to train junior developers on an old engine when they’re more familiar with UE5. We’ve seen teams like Halo Studios and TT Games face similar struggles with old engines before eventually opting to switch to Unreal.

Though many are sure to be excited about the announcement, there are also some concerns. Primarily, players are worried that a new engine might meaningfully change how the game’s physics engine behaves. The core feel of Rocket League is intertwined with how the ball reacts when colliding with one’s car, and any change to those systems will cause a major shock wave in the community.

Still, Epic Games is responsible for both UE3 and UE5, so the chances of the port feeling worse than the original are low. Everyone is looking for the exact same game with shiny new visuals and more content, and that seems to be what Epic is going for.

The Paris Major Storms On

The announcement of Rocket League on UE6 came during the semi-finals of the Paris Major, an appropriate time to make such a massive announcement, given that the event is one of the game’s biggest ever.

The energy in Paris is electric, as three of the competing teams, Karmine Corp, Team Vitality and Gentle Mates, are French organisations and each reached the major’s final six. The fandom of these respective organisations is on full display on the streets of Paris, seen by many as the spiritual home of Rocket League esports.

With the next semi-final being contested by Karmine Corp and Team Vitality to see who will face Twisted Minds in the Grand Finals, the energy of Paris’ La Défense Arena remains frenetic.

Rocket League

Released

July 7, 2015

ESRB

E for Everyone: Mild Lyrics

Developer(s)

Psyonix

Publisher(s)

Psyonix

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