Rocket Jump

What is Rocket Jump? #

Based on the Soldier class from Team Fortress 2, players shoot unidirectional, fixed-speed rockets and take advantage of the explosion they create to propel themselves throughout maps.

History of Rocket Jump #

The origins of rocket jumping can be traced all the way back to the release of Doom in 1993. Players could sacrifice health to cross gaps not originally intended to be crossed by firing a rocket at a wall nearby and use the outward horizontal velocity emitted by the explosion of the rocket (sometimes called the “splash” or “splash damage”) to strafe across a gap. Other games, like Rise of the Triad (1994) and Marathon (1995), also had similar mechanics, leading to the rise of Rocket Jumping as a “Pro Strategy” for beating certain levels fast or showing off in deathmatch. This was refined in Quake, where the verticality offered by the Quake Engine allowed for players to be able to launch themselves upwards using the rocket launcher, skipping parts of levels, finding secrets, or gaining height advantages in classic Deathmatch gamemodes. Quake is arguably the true beginning of Rocket Jumping as we know it, as it was the most popular early example of rocket jumping, and the first to truly demonstrate how large the skill ceiling for rocket jumping could be due to it utilizing a full true 3D environment. This is also the beginning of players making maps specifically dedicated to practicing rocket jumping.