Now that players have gotten some game time with our latest character, Shovel Knight, we have a few updates we wanted to squeeze in before our next major event. This includes a new way to spend your Aether coins along with some balance updates. Stay safe during any upcoming Heat Waves and read on for the full notes below.

You can now shop for profile icons with all those Aether coins you've been hoarding! In any online mode, scroll through your icon pages to see purchasable ones designated by a golden lock. These feature non-playable characters you might recognize from story mode and even others you might not be so familiar with from throughout the world of Aether.



Whew this one's pretty pricey. Who is that guy anyway?


You might have noticed these snuck in during a hotfix, but if not, our Halloween skins are here to begin their reign of terror for the Halloween season. You can choose these skins in any game mode (including ranked) where these colors will be available until the next season rotation.

• Your Double jump is now restored if interrupted on the very first frame; aka Double Jump Protection: 0 > 1 (was 6 before 1.4.0).
• The last 5 frames of tech options can no longer be cancelled into jumpsquat.
• On hit, the last 5 frames of landing lag can now be cancelled into jumpsquat for all moves, not just moves that have the same landing lag frames as the character's natural land frames.
• Frozen players will now break free and go into prat fall when the ground under them disappears.
• Bug Fix: Jumpsquat can now be cancelled into Uspecial.

• Forward Special can now interrupt attacks again.
• Wrastor Fspecial now deals no hitpause/hitstun against crouching opponents. It also has a new sound effect on frame 1 to make it more reactable.
• Prat Land time after Neutral Special reduced from 24 > 18. Prat Land time after Up Special remains at 24.

• The Rock will now hit enemies in the direction that it's moving.
  
  This fixes the weird reversal issues that could occur when The Rock hits someone after bouncing off of something else.

• Down Air hit-2 hitbox now matches the animation better.
• Combust hitstun scaling decreased from 1.0 > 0.8.

• Forward Air hitbox now matches animation better.
• Forward Special will no longer auto-reverse after reversing a tether to an opponent.

• Forward Smash scaling increased from 0.7 > 0.8.
• Down Smash scaling increased from 0.7 > 0.8.

• Dash attack sweetspot hitpause increased.
• Ori can only cancel dash attack after hitpause is over (adds 2 frames before you can cancel).

• Forward Special will now follow moving platforms.

• Clairen has a new tipper visual effect!

• Forward Tilt projectile now only deals knockback if the opponent is already in hitstun (similar to Ori's Spirit Flame).
• Multiple Forward Tilt projectiles can now exist at the same time.
• Forward Tilt projectile damage increased from 1 > 2.
• Forward Tilt hit lockout increased from 3 > 4.
• Down Smash scaling increased from 0.85 > 1.0.
• Forward Smash scaling increased from 1.05 > 1.15.
• Forward Smash angle adjusted from 361 to 45.
• When Sylvanos hits an opponent with both hits of his Up Air, the second hit's hitstun scaling is now 0.85 (down from 1.0).

• Down Special Mine now arms properly on parried enemies.
• Neutral Special now causes parry stun.
• Elliana will now rebuild her mech after breaking free from Maypul's wrap.
• Elliana will no longer gain invincibility when parrying steam that has already been parried.

• The dirt block created by Up Strong will no longer cancel respawn invincibility when it's destroyed.

It's been a wild summer packed with plenty of Rivals events and announcements, and we don’t plan to stop anytime soon. Strap in and and get ready for the largest patch we've had all year with a brand new guest character, fresh stages, updated animations, and lots more!



The wielder of the legendary Shovel Blade joins the roster as our final guest in a collaboration between Dan Fornace LLC and Yacht Club Games. Shovel Knight is available now for $4.99 on Steam, which includes Shovel Knight himself and the standalone Troupple Pond stage.



As always, you can try Shovel Knight for free in our character tutorial section.

Two completely new stages have been added featuring areas from both Sylvanos’ and Elliana’s story. You can unlock these stages yourself by purchasing (or already owning) the Sylvanos and Elliana character DLC.


Fight in the deadly undergrowth of the Aetherian Forest on “The Forest Floor”. Make sure you keep an eye on the local flora in Aether Mode, or you’ll find out firsthand the reason the Tree Dwellers never venture below.



Visit the Steampunk town where Elliana built her infamous mech. Fight on the city skyline and across an ongoing delivery operation in the bustling city of “Julesvale”.


As our stage list grows we’ll continue to evaluate its competitive impact. In line with that goal, we’ve also added an additional stage ban this patch (upping the bans to three) along with these exciting new locales.

We've been hard at work on a game engine upgrade all summer, and are pleased to announce that GameMaker Studio 2 is back. Once again, this should provide immediate improvements to help gameplay run smoother for most players, as well as set us up for future upgrades and additional platforms.

If you have trouble launching the game, controller problems, or any other issues on the newest patch - please run DXDiag and send us some information about your PC by using the “Save All Information” button. To run DXDiag simply type ‘DXDiag’ into your start bar.

• Moonwalk duration increased from 18 to 24.
• Moonwalking is locked out for the first 2 frames of initial dash (makes keyboard/dpad moonwalking equal to joystick moonwalking).
• Double jumps are no longer restored when hit within 6 frames of double jumping.
• Reflecting projectiles doubles their base hitpause.
• Being put into the flinch state will now restore your airdodge.
• Bouncing off the ground after missing a tech will no longer restore your double jump.
• You can now parry during respawn invincibility, but you become vulnerable when doing so.
• Kill move shockwaves have been replaced with a new effect.
  If the move will kill with no DI or inward DI (ignoring drift and obstacles) then you will get the standard burst effect. If the move is a guaranteed kill (ignoring ledge tech, but taking drift and obstacles into account) then you will get a 20 frame burst effect with a special background that covers the entire screen.

• Forward tilt hit 1 now pulls enemies inward during hitpause, allowing hit 2 to connect more consistently.
• Burn is now removed on parry.
• Bug fix: Forward Strong/Down Strong hit 1 now moves enemies during hitpause when connecting with the last frame of the hitbox.

• Down Strong endlag increased from 19 to 21 (29 > 32 on whiff).
• If Nair is held, it now bounces off the ground if you land while the hitbox is active.
• Forward Air and Down Special bubbles spawn/move in preset patterns instead of randomly.

• Down Air semi-spike hitbox angle flipper removed.
• Forward Special no longer interrupts attacks.
• Forward Tilt hitboxes adjusted in size and position. These first two hitboxes now additionally pull inward to make connecting the third hit more reliable.
• Neutral Special disjoint removed.
• Neutral Special hit lockout no longer applies to the final hitboxes of the move. This fixes a bug where they would miss due to the last multihit hitboxes hitting late.
• Down Strong will now bounce if connecting on the frame before landing.
• Down Special changed into a two-hit attack (to prevent it from heavily winning trades).
• Up Special sweetspot angle flipper removed.
• Prat fall air acceleration multiplier increased from 0.25 to 0.5.

• Forward Air landing lag increased from 6 to 8 (9 > 12 on whiff).
• Angle flipper removed on rockless Neutral Special.

• Removed invincibility from clone creation.
• Shortly after starting Forward Special, it will now go on a cooldown. This makes it so you can't Forward Special again immediately if it's interrupted.
• Forsburn no longer retains smoke charges when super clone dies from the bottom blastzone.
• Parrying clone explosion now allows you to cancel parry's endlag, like other projectiles.
• Forsburn can now use regular Down Special immediately after the clone explodes.
• Forward Air decreased in size to match animation better.
• Up Air active frames decreased from 16 to 10. Endlag added so that it's the same on hit, but has more whifflag.
• Getting interrupted while performing Forward Special or Neutral Special while fully charged now causes you to lose all smoke charges.

• Forward Special and Neutral Special Cloud Pop will no longer hit Absa if parried near her.
• Fixed a bug that made Up Tilt 1 frame faster on hit than it should be. Increased from 8 on hit, 14 on whiff to 9 on hit, 14 on whiff.

• Forward Special hitbox size increased to make hitting with and parrying this move more consistent.
• Neutral Special now gains armor 1 frame earlier so that trading with the move doesn't stop it from getting armor.
• Down Special is now walljump-cancellable when done near a wall.
• Enemies can no longer be frozen during the respawn state (fixes a bug that turned enemies invisible).

• Hitpause removed from Sein taps when they do no knockback.
• Bashing rock on the frame it hits the ground should no longer crash the game.
• Sein's Team-up Down Strong hitboxes increased in size inward to stop the move from whiffing opponents in the center.
• Team-up Forward Strong back hitbox now carries opponents into the front hitboxes.
• If a projectile is destroyed while being bashed, Ori will now be launched upward instead of going into special fall.
• Charged Flame will no longer hit Ori when parried near them.

• Neutral Special endlag scales from 18 to 12 based on how many needles were thrown. Endlag was previously 12 for aerial needle and 18 for grounded needle.
• Getting hit during Neutral Special now causes Ranno to lose all needle charges.

• Forward Tilt endlag increased from 12 to 15 (18 > 23 on whiff).
• Dash Attack endlag increased from 13 to 16 (20 > 24 on whiff).
• Down Special will no longer create a plasma field if the counter attack is parried.

• Tail removed from hurtboxes (except during the active frames of Forward Tilt).
• Solo Up Air2 base knockback decreased from 9 to 8.
• Forward Tilt startup increased from 5 to 7.
• Forward Tilt projectile now comes out 2 frames later so that trading with Forward Tilt will always prevent the projectile from spawning.
• Up Tilt startup decreased from 8 to 6.
• The first hit of Down Tilt (both hitboxes) now has 4 extra frames of hitpause for the opponent, making it link reliably in most cases.
• Down Special will stop spreading if Sylvanos is hit.
• Holding taunt while emerging from Up Special now cancels Up Special into a taunt.
• Sylvanos no longer creates grass while rolling or tech rolling.
• Grass on cooldown will now be removed on death.
• Down Special will no longer hit Sylvanos when parried near him.
• Bug fix: Forward Tilt projectile hitbox height increased to match the visual.

• Once per airtime, hovering in the opposite direction of your horizontal momentum will give you a boost in the new direction (the same boost other characters get when they double jump). Going into hitstun resets this ability.
• Uncharged Forward Special knockback increased from [6 BKB .1 Scaling] to [7 BKB .2 Scaling].
• Uncharged Forward Special cooldown increased from 0 to 20.
• Charged Forward Special knockback scaling increased from .9 to 1.0.
• Charged Forward Special hitpause increased.
• Up Special will no longer hurt Elliana when parried near her.
• Elliana's mech now moves with moving platforms when left behind with Up Special.
• Down Special's mine now takes 100 frames to become active when stuck to a player, unless they're in parry stun.
• Up Special's mech now only explodes when it's overheated.
  When deployed, it will automatically build up heat. This change adds 30 frames of startup time if you have 0 heat built up, while keeping the startup the same if you're overheated.

It’s true! Everyone’s favorite spade-swinging protagonist will be joining the Rivals cast this September! We could not be more excited to bring Shovel Knight to the game, and have been working like crazy to ensure that he not only lives up to the hype, but is true to the character you know and love.



In fact, we want to do something we’ve never done before, and take you on a little behind the scenes journey into the process of bringing Shovel Knight to life as a Rivals character. Rather than just describe the process, we want you to hear directly from the folks who made this all possible. So, we asked some of our awesome team to share their own experience in developing our latest guest character.

In this article, you’ll hear from:

Dan Fornace - Creator, Director, Designer
Trevor Youngblood - Programmer, Designer
Ellian - Pixel Artist, Animator
Marc Knelsen - Illustrator, Concept Artist


The answer here is, of course, “because he’s awesome!” However, Dan had a bit more insight on what makes the character an ideal choice as a guest character. To him, there were three main draws to Shovel Knight as a playable fighter:

• “His abilities are perfectly set up to be in a platform fighter considering he has a wide array of tools in his own platforming adventure.”
• “The global appeal of Shovel Knight is off the charts. He is likely the most recognizable Indie Game character in the last 10 years and we wanted to create a moveset that fans have been asking for.”
• “The development team at Yacht Club Games is awesome. After meeting them at a few events during Rivals of Aether’s development, I knew I wanted to collaborate with them somehow and a character is the ultimate collaboration.”

Of course, once the team chose to make Shovel Knight playable in Rivals, they had to actually, y’know, make him.

Making a guest character is a collaborative process. Since the team is borrowing a pre-existing character from a popular franchise, Shovel Knight’s original dev team needs to make sure that the soul of the character remains intact when translating him into a brand new genre.

Trevor said, “Shovel Knight’s shop mechanic came around after we tried two other designs first, and I think it’s by far the most interesting of the three.” That iterative process was important, because the team needed to find a way to make Shovel Knight fit within Rivals’ unique gameplay while still making fans of his original game feel as though they were playing the same character.

Dan explained that this was particularly difficult with Shovel Knight because he is essentially the “Mario” of his series. “He is the balanced, traditional character that balances against the rest of the Shovel Knight cast. That would be great if we were doing a roster of indie game characters where Shovel Knight could be one of the main mascots and have a traditional moveset. But because we wanted a character that stood out from the rest of the Rivals with a new mechanic, we had to come up with ideas that gave him a unique style while also pulling from Shovel Knight for inspiration”



This is where the Shop design came in. It retains the soul of Shovel Knight’s progression and access to a wide array of tools, while making him a completely unique character within the Rivals roster. Of course, Rivals is still a fighting game, and some items that are wonderful in a platformer could have been problematic when ported to a platform fighter.

“A lot of Shovel Knight’s relics are projectiles,” said Trevor, “which didn’t really fit our vision of him, since we didn’t want another projectile-focused zoner. The task became a lot easier when we started adding Custom Knight’s relics to his moveset. Some relics, however, would be extremely busted if we kept their original functionality, like the War Horn or the Phase Locket, so we took some liberties and tweaked their properties to fit Rivals better.”

While the character design team is busy playing with all of Shovel Knight’s moves, the art team has its own unique challenges. Someone unfamiliar with Rival’s art direction may think that Shovel Knight would be a simple character to translate to Rivals. After all, they’re both pixel art games!

Indeed, translating an existing character does speed up the concept process. The designers and artists can more easily communicate about how each move should look, because they have plenty of direct reference material from which to pull. However, Shovel Knight’s particular aesthetic presented the team with a new, but familiar challenge.

Ellian said, “it's the fact that he has armor that was the biggest challenge. As for Elliana, in pixel art it's really hard to animate "non-organic" elements while retaining the smooth animation style that characterizes Rivals. I just didn't want it to feel like those old retro games, where it's just different layered parts that moves independently. But I think we managed to avoid that without losing our style. The coolest part (and the hardest!) was being able to add Shield Knight as a summon parry. It might be the animation we spent the most time on, because we wanted her to be perfect!”



Throughout their interviews, the team could barely contain their excitement for Shovel Knight. So, we decided to just let them gush about their work for a bit.

Dan: I think the coolest aspect is probably the simplest. His Down Air is his Shovel Drop and that move just opens up so much more of his gameplay. Whether its bouncing off projectiles or using it with the Dynamo Mail to trigger Aerial Strong attacks, there is so much you can do with Shovel Drop in both Shovel Knight and Rivals of Aether.

Trevor: I was impressed by how many different references we were able to fit in. Almost every single move is pulled from something in Shovel Knight’s game (down tilt is the only one that isn’t a reference to anything). Also Shovel Drop is just an incredibly fun move that I’m glad we could port almost directly from Shovel Knight.

Ellian: My favorite aspect of doing Shovel Knight for Rivals is how DOPE it was to work on such an iconic character. I get to make my own take on it! That's wild! Yacht Club's main feedback was "just make sure it fits Rivals, that's the most important", and having such freedom was great.

Marc: I think the only thing I can say, on my side, is that it's been really fun to draw him “interacting” with the other Rivals characters, getting to explore reaction from both him and the other characters. And that obviously I feel honored to be involved in any way with such an iconic character, being someone who played Shovel Knight as soon as it came out on 3DS years ago and really enjoying the game.


We cannot wait for you to get your hands on Shovel Knight. To stay up to date on the latest news, make sure to join our Discord and follow us on Twitter. While you’re there, let us know what about Shovel Knight has you most excited!

Shovel Knight is joining the Rivals of Aether roster this fall! In a collaboration between Dan Fornace LLC and Yacht Club Games, Shovel Knight has been adapted to compete against the other Rivals. Shovel Knight will be available in September on Steam as a $4.99 DLC addition. It comes with the playable character Shovel Knight as well as the Troupple Pond stage from his game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4SFvmJ9NPE

Shovel Knight comes with a huge array of tools from his game and puts them all to use in Rivals of Aether. His attacks knock gems out of his opponents which he can collect to increase his treasure. By taunting, Shovel Knight can summon Chester and spend his treasure on upgrades. This allows players to customize each fight to their needs and experience even more of Shovel Knight's abilities.



We are incredibly excited to bring such a well-known and beloved character to Rivals of Aether. We are even more excited about the unique playstyle that he brings to the table. Many of his attacks seem simple on first glance but have intricacies in how you can use them, similar to his abilities in his own game. Shovel Knight's signature Shovel Drop is a big part of his game plan in Rivals of Aether and sets up for his combos.



While Shovel Knight is the last planned character addition to Rivals of Aether, the road does not end here. The team is gearing up for a Definitive Release in early 2019. This will come with all the characters, more online features, and Abyss Mode customizations for every character. We are very excited to be bringing the Definitive Edition to PC in 2019 and plan on bringing it to more platforms as well. Keep your eyes here to see where else you'll be able to grab Rivals of Aether in 2019!

Thank you for checking out Rivals of Aether. Let's get Shoveling!

It's our first patch on an upgraded engine - that's right - we've completed our move to GameMaker Studio 2! This is good news as you'll see some immediate benefits like texture updates and other optimizations to help gameplay run smoother. This also sets us up further down the road to bring Rivals to more platforms.

If you have trouble launching the game, graphical issues, or controller problems on the newest patch please run DXDiag and send us a screenshot of your system and display tabs. To run DXDiag simply type 'DXDiag' into your start bar.

We’ve added even more movement options to Rivals this patch with the advent of moonwalking. This advanced tech is great for microspacing or when you just want to show off.



RIVALS OF AETHER is now available in Japanese! We’re excited to announce that our first localization efforts are complete, allowing players to switch from English to Japanese text through the in-game options menu.

• Forward Special now has double the endlag if it whiffs, but only if it was started on the ground (or within 32px above ground) and not reversed.

• Clones will not jump for 10 frames after you release the Special button.
  This change is to make it possible to command super clone to attack offstage while still preventing his jump, since previously he would jump on the frame that you released special.

• Last patch 3 frames of extra endlag were added to Absa's Up Special. This endlag now only happens on whiff, instead of always.

• Armored Up Strong final hitbox position changed to match non-armored Up Strong.

• Down Air can now be cancelled with Up Special (at the same time that it can be cancelled by jumping).
• Charged flame sweetspot knockback scaling decreased from 0.75 > 0.6.
• Bug fix: Ori can no longer issue orders to Sein while teching the ground.

• Forward Special now checks 32px downward to determine if it will be cancellable.
  This prevents Clairen from doing short hop instant Forward Special to avoid the endlag of grounded Forward Special.

• Off-grass landing lag multiplier decreased from 2x > 1.5x.
• 10 frame hit lockout added to Up Strong, Down Strong, Back Air, Down Air (spike hit only), Forward Special, and Up Special bite (to prevent Neutral Special from cancelling their knockback).
• Solo Up Air2 base knockback increased from 7 > 9.
• Forward Air endlag increased from 10 > 12 on hit.
• Forward Air landing lag increased from 6 > 8.
• Sweetspot Forward Air base hitpause increased from 6 > 10.
• Jab 1 endlag increased from 12 > 15 (still cancellable on same frame).
• Jab 2 endlag increased from 12 > 18 (still cancellable on same frame).
• Forward Tilt now reaches 8px farther inward.
• Up Tilt hits 1 and 2 angle adjusted to 90 > 75 inward.
• Dash Attack endlag increased from 16 > 19 on hit.
• Forward Strong knockback scaling increased from .95 > 1.05.
• Down Strong knockback scaling increased from .8 > .85.
• Back Air endlag increased from 18 > 25.
• Up Special startup increased from 4 > 8.
• Down Special now activates grass attacks radially away from Sylvanos instead of all at once.
• Bug fix: Up Air2 sound effect fixed.
• Bug fix: Up Special no longer crashes the game when breaking the walls on Aether Frozen Fortress.

• Up Air endlag increased from 16 > 20.
• Steam Strong attacks now have real hitboxes that accompany the steam.
• Strong attack cooldown removed.
• Charged Forward Special knockback scaling increased from 0.7 > 0.9.
• Up Special rebuild time increased from 24 > 32 frames.
• Using Up Special now destroys Down Special's mine.
  Elliana now has to sacrifice her Down Special to use Up Special as a combo breaker or recovery option. This gives the opponent a strategy once they've been stuck: get Elliana offstage so she has to Up Special.
• Down Special's mine explosion will now remove the mine from stuck players.
  This makes it impossible to stick someone with Down Special while they're trapped in the Down Special explosion. Elliana can still stick opponents immediately after the 3rd explosion hits (making the required timing a little more precise).

Now that the dust has settled from our recent major update, we've had some time to squash a few bugs. Thanks to everyone who helped report these. Please continue to send us your suggestions and feedback so we can keep Rivals excellent.

• Holding down during the flinch state will no longer crouch cancel unless you were previously in the crouch state.
• Opponent's speed is now capped when they're sent into parry stun from a projectile. This prevents a weird bug where players would go flying after getting parried.
• Wrastor Aerial Dspecial hurtbox corrected.
• Fixed scenarios in Kragg's and Elliana's tutorials that would prevent completion.
• Forsburn's clone will no longer use the default color for Elliana's mine when
  stuck.
• Ori's bash is no longer techable before the launching hit connects.
• The detection radius for Ori bashing Elliana's mech has been corrected.
• Elliana's guided missiles will no longer pass through low crouching characters on a platform when moving vertically.
• The charged version of Elliana's guided missile will now correctly break Kragg's rock.
• Kragg can no longer airdodge out of Elliana's mine explosion.
• The moves below have been fixed to work correctly when Team Attack is turned on:
  
  • Ori's Spirit Flame
  • Clairen's Plasma Field
  • Elliana's Steam

• Uair hit 1 and 2 SDI modifier increased from 1 > 1.2.
  This prevents uair > tether > uair from being guaranteed which had somehow worked its way back into the game.

• When Elliana's Uspecial is parried she now receives extended parry stun.
• Utilt can no longer hit frozen enemies.
• Holding the attack button will only cause you to hover if you're doing an aerial, instead of any air attack.
  This change allows people who use the "strong attack" control scheme to do smashes without flying to the top of their screen.

We've got a small patch today featuring some quality of life changes, a few bugfixes, and other balance changes we've made in respect to Sylvanos' and Elliana's launch last week. There's also some fixes for controller issues that had arisen from our revamp last patch. If you're looking for older notes since there's been a few patches recently, here's 1.3.0 and 1.3.1.

• Trading with a move that hits inward will no longer turn you around.
• Fixed a bug that prevented multihit projectiles from being crouch cancelled correctly.

• Switching the window focus away from Rivals of Aether will no longer reassign Dinput controllers' ports or unassign player profiles once focus is returned.
• Fixed a bug that caused one controller to control multiple ports at once.

Last week patch 1.3.0 revamped how Rivals detects controllers, allowing players to use Dinput and Xinput devices at the same time without setting a controller mode. This also solved one of the largest common controller issues in Rivals where crashes would occur when players were added or removed (more commonly seen during live events).

Thanks to players' feedback we've been able to work out a few of the kinks in the new system and we appreciate all of your help as we make this change for the better. We're still working on re-adding support for a few adapters. If you find your controller not working, unchecking Steam's controller configuration settings under manage game has gotten many players back up and running. If you're still experiencing issues please email contact@rivalsofaether.com so we can help!

• Dspecial now only restores Wrastor's jumps on hit instead of always.

• Smoke is now destroyed by steam and Elliana's uTilt.
• Holding the special button will prevent clone from jumping or using Uspecial while offstage.
  This allows Forsburn players to get even more creative and sneaky when spawning clone offstage.

• Ustrong shard damage decreased from 6 > 3 (to match Fstrong and Dstrong shards).

• Can now bash Elliana Dspecial and Uspecial.

• New sound effect added when starting Fspecial, making it slightly easier to react to.
• Gravity reduced while channeling bubble movement.

• Projectiles are no longer active in the plasma field for 1 frame.
• Ori can now counter Elliana's steam and Utilt.
• Plasma field will now disable Elliana's Uspecial mech.

• Uair has been redesigned to be a two-part multihit. The second hit is unchanged, but only if you miss the first hit. If you land the first hit, the second will have the strength of the previous patch's first hit. This means if you want the strong hit, you'll have to intentionally miss the first part of the attack.
• Time between Uair hits decreased from 10 > 4 frames.
• Uspecial multihits can no longer destroy projectiles.
• Flower hp reduced from 10 > 1.
• Flower is now immune to projectiles that deal less than 8 damage for the first second after it's planted.
• Flower dies when Sylvanos dies.

• Jab hit lockout time increased from 0 > 6 frames.
• Dash attack no longer builds any heat during the first 3 cycles (since these cycles happen even if you aren't holding the attack button).
• If Utilt is interrupted, the opponent will take minimal knockback instead of the full cannon knockback.
• Utilt claw now appears closed when it can no longer grab players.
• Fair/Dair multihits now force flinch on grounded opponents.
• Dair hit one and two hitstun modifier increased from 1 > 2 frames.
  This move now has 1 frame less overall hitstun on grounded opponents because of the above flinch change.
• Uair is now a single-hit sweep attack.
• Uair endlag increased from 14 > 16 frames (on hit).
• Disjoint added to dash attack and fair.
• Fair final hit damage increased from 2 > 4.
• Consecutive strong attacks without touching the ground release less heat.
• Rocket fist now detonates when colliding with Sticky Bomb.
• Rocket fist's explosion becomes stronger when hitting Sticky Bomb.
• Can no longer control Guided Missiles while dead.
• Charged Fspecial is no longer breakable by attacking it.
• Uspecial is invincible for the first 3 frames after dropping the mech.
• Uspecial is projectile invincible while rising.
• Uspecial landing hurtbox changed to just be her idle hurtbox instead of the full cloud.
• Snake hurtbox now matches her sprite.
• Snake walljump horizontal speed decreased from 7 > 4 (so she can recover using walljump without the use of an airdodge).
• Sticky Bomb explosion is now bigger.
• Sticky Bomb cooldown increased 30 > 90 frames.
• Sticky Bomb is now removed from the stage when Elliana dies.
• Steam influence from hitboxes reduced from .5x base knockback > .3x base knockback.

Surprise! Patch 1.3.0 was not an April Fools' joke (unlike most of what we revealed this weekend). We’ve got two brand new characters, revamped controller support, a host of balance changes, and more to dig into. Read on for the detailed notes and other good stuff.



Sylvanos, The Heart of the Forest and Elliana, The Aerial Arsenal are now available on Steam! These Rivals come as a DLC two pack and can be added to your roster for $4.99.

Sylvanos is our third Rival to represent the earth element while Elliana rounds out our roster as the final air Rival. Both of them are also unique in that they’re our first Rivals who are also villains. Pick them up today or try them for free in their tutorials, accessible through the solo menu in game.

To celebrate the release of Sylvanos and Elliana, we’re putting on the biggest Steam sale Rivals has ever seen. For just one week, the base game is going all the way down to $4.99, while all of the past DLC (both characters and skins) will be 50% off.

That means you can pick up the base game in addition to all of the characters and skins for just $20 total. If you have a friend who’s been waiting for a sale, make sure you pass on the news!

We’ve completely revamped controller support this patch. Players will no longer need to select a controller mode in the options menu as Dinput and Xinput both work simultaneously now. Support was also added for Switch Pro controllers via Bluetooth.

If you're having trouble with yours on the new patch, make sure you post in our bug support forum so we can dig into the issue.


We've got balance changes for every character this patch and the list gets quite long! To view the full detailed patch notes head over to our website at: http://www.rivalsofaether.com/blog/?p=3023

Surprise! Patch 1.3.0 was not an April Fools' joke (unlike most of what we revealed this weekend). We’ve got two brand new characters, revamped controller support, a host of balance changes, and more to dig into. Read on for the detailed notes and other good stuff.



Sylvanos, The Heart of the Forest and Elliana, The Aerial Arsenal are now available on Steam! These Rivals come as a DLC two pack and can be added to your roster for $4.99.

Sylvanos is our third Rival to represent the earth element while Elliana rounds out our roster as the final air Rival. Both of them are also unique in that they’re our first Rivals who are also villains. Pick them up today or try them for free in their tutorials, accessible through the solo menu in game.

To celebrate the release of Sylvanos and Elliana, we’re putting on the biggest Steam sale Rivals has ever seen. For just one week, the base game is going all the way down to $4.99, while all of the past DLC (both characters and skins) will be 50% off.

That means you can pick up the base game in addition to all of the characters and skins for just $20 total. If you have a friend who’s been waiting for a sale, make sure you pass on the news!

We’ve completely revamped controller support this patch. Players will no longer need to select a controller mode in the options menu as Dinput and Xinput both work simultaneously now. Support was also added for Switch Pro controllers via Bluetooth.

If you're having trouble with yours on the new patch, make sure you post in our bug support forum so we can dig into the issue.


We've got balance changes for every character this patch and the list gets quite long! To view the full detailed patch notes head over to our website at: http://www.rivalsofaether.com/blog/?p=3023

We've just released a small update where we squashed a few bugs, including a tricky Abyss mode crash. Here's the notes for those interested in the details.

• Updated splash screen to prepare for Hyrule Saga. We'll make sure to let everyone know when the Hero Clairen skin becomes available.

• Buffering a walljump after an aerial attack will no longer result in a double jump.
• Zetterburn can no longer jump during the first frame of charged Nspecial, causing the hitbox to not come out.
• Grabbing a rock with Etalus' Uair will now move the rock toward the second hitbox just like it does with players.
• Etalus can no longer walljump or fastfall after being wrapped with super armor.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Clairen Fspecial from rising onto the ledge if started against the wall.
• Gameboy Wrastor slipstream is now translucent.
• Fixed a bug causing Abyss mode to crash on low settings after the break the seeds wave.