Every screen between you and a moving ball is gone. Hitting Play Now connects you to a live 4v4 on the spot — bots hold every open seat until a player takes it, so there is never a queue and never a wait. New players pick a name on one small card and they're in.
Online matches now look like the game we ship everywhere else: every ball wears a real skin (bots included), matches open with a proper intro screen showing both rosters, and the countdown runs a full ten seconds so you can actually read who you're playing with.
A live scoreboard strip now runs across the top of every match — all eight players at a glance, grayed out with a respawn count when they're down, a flag mark on the carrier, and pips for active powerups. Press Escape in an online match for the full box score without pausing anything; in a bot match, the pause menu has been rebuilt to say everything once instead of twice.
Private rooms moved to their own page — find Play with friends in the Play menu, pick a map, and send the invite link. Quick-play will never route a stranger into your room.