Few things divide gamers as much as debates about skill gaps and streamers are no different.
When Jynxzi claimed that Rocket League has the highest skill gap in gaming, former Overwatch pro xQc didn’t hesitate to push back.
xQc Pushes Back Against Rocket League Skill Gap Claims
In a post on X, the streamer Jynxzi stated that, in his opinion, Rocket League has the highest skill gap of any game:
"Rocket League probably, undeniably, the highest skill game I've ever seen in my entire life. I can not name a singular video game that requires more skill than Rocket League."
When xQc watched the video and heard that sentence, he immediately reacted with just one word: “Overwatch”. According to him, Overwatch is the hardest game and it isn’t even close:
“You need to adjust in real time, while strategizing, and communicating. By far the most complex aiming style. It’s by far the hardest.”
The debate, however, really began to heat up when Rocket League caster Stumpy entered the discussion with very clear words:
“You’re completely ignorant and/or uninformed if you think OVERWATCH has a higher skill gap than Rocket League. It’s not even the highest skill FPS game. Put 7 amateurs against 1 pro in OW and the pro WILL lose. A RETIRED pro beat 7 amateurs in RL. It’s not even close.”
Still, xQc wasn’t convinced by that way of measuring difficulty:
“Imagine quantifying the difficulty of your game by how many people a pro can beat. Jynxzi scored a goal against a ‘pro’ in 12 tries. Rocket League is hard because it has a non-transferable skill set, FPS are harder because people have been training their whole life.”
Stumpy agreed that unbalanced teams facing a pro are not the only way to determine a game’s skill gap, but he still stood by his take that Rocket League is harder:
“I agree that it’s not the ONLY measure. RL is harder not only because of the non-transferable skill set but because there’s game-changing mechanics that people with 5,000 hours can’t do consistently that aren’t present in OW.”
It appears that xQc and Stumpy are unlikely to reach an agreement anytime soon, but perhaps they could settle the debate in a match of Rocket League or Overwatch.
What Really Makes A Game Difficult
Ahh, here we go again, another debate about which game is the hardest. Meanwhile, fighting game players are watching this discussion with tears in their eyes, fully aware of how demanding their genre is and how much less popular it remains.
The problem with debates like these is that they compare widely different skill sets as if they were directly comparable. On top of that, almost every online competitive game becomes extremely difficult once you reach a certain level of play.
Take Smash Bros. Ultimate, for example. It is often considered a relatively easy game, especially when compared to other fighting games. Yes, I know Smash Bros. is a platform fighter. Still a fighting game, though. But the better you get, the more you realize that its skill ceiling is practically infinite, requiring insane levels of micromanagement and precision.
And now you might say that another game also has insane micromanagement and that its skill ceiling is just as infinite. Exactly, that is the point.
Every competitive online game offers almost endless room for improvement. Game mechanics are only one part of what makes a game difficult. The real challenge in all of these games is overcoming a human opponent, someone who is also practicing, adapting, and constantly getting better.
So what I am really trying to say is this. Every online competitive game is incredibly difficult, regardless of how mechanically demanding it is. What truly makes these games hard is not the mechanics, but the opponent.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
