Earlier this year, we announced that four new characters would be joining the Rivals cast in a free update coming late 2021. However, these characters all shared something never-before-seen in Rivals. Instead of coming from the minds of our dev team, they originated as some of the very best from the thousands of community-created Steam Workshop mods.

https://youtu.be/fK71Zc3JA-Q

One character from each element has been chosen to officially join the Rivals universe! Mollo, Hodan, Pomme, and Olympia will be added to the game in a free update for both Rivals on Steam and Nintendo Switch. Each character will also come with their own stage skin and brand new music from RESOFORCE and flashygoodness.

Fans who've already played these characters in the workshop will also still have plenty to look forward to. This squad with their unique take on the Rivals classical elements aren't just being added as-is. Their abilities, sprites, and story are being adapted into the official Rivals universe. You can even see Mollo appear in Future Imperfect Issue #3!

Players can look forward to plenty of animation and graphics updates from the original creators as well as Rivals animators Ellian and Jasontomlee, in addition to ability reworks and balance passes to ensure the characters are a natural addition to the cast.



As we work on balance testing and other exciting changes, here's a few things we can tease from each character as we prepare them for release:

Mollo



Mollo has all-new strong attacks accessible while not holding anything. His down strong throws a smoke bomb that deals knockback and allows him to dash out from either direction!

Hodan



Hodan's special attacks have been reworked a bit to add some extra spice to his game. His new neutral special spins him around, giving him a brief air stall and pulling in sweat spirits to empower a full-fledged water spout!

Pomme



Pomme's animations have been given a lot of love. Pomme's DACUS allows her to power-slide like a true popstar!

Olympia



Olympia's crystal stun has been reworked to be unique from the rest of the cast. Her neutral special and her down special lock opponents in crystals for a short time before launching them upward upon shattering!

Which character are you looking forward to most?

Part three of the Future Imperfect series is available now! Clairen is closing in on her life-long goal, but first she has to survive the fiery revolutionary Mollo! How far will she go, and what will she sacrifice, on her quest for revenge?



We're exited to bring the world of Aether to comics with a star-studded team featuring Dan Fornace, Ian Flynn, Jack Lawrence, Matt Herms, Marc Knelsen and Jack Morelli.

Tales of Aether Issue #3 can now be purchased on ComiXology for $2.99: https://www.comixology.com/Tales-of-Aether-3/digital-comic/951386

Future Imperfect is a four part series with the final issue releasing next month. You can find past issues in the collection on comiXology.

Summer is around the corner and we are excited to rollout some nice quality of life and UI improvements that affect both local and online modes.


A few QoL and UI improvements that we've been working on:

• The Random Stage rule will now only pick a stage once, not repeating until every stage has been played at least once. (Once that happens, every stage can be picked again.)
  
• You can now use Up and Down on the milestones screen to scale the progress bars up and down.
  
• The match timer is now always centered based on the total width of the timer, instead of just on the colon.
  
• The foreground water in Merchant Port and Frozen Fortress have been made slightly more transparent.
  
• The Team Attack rule now defaults to being on.
  
• Display options have now been split into two menus: Display and Graphics.
  
• You now have the option to hide the top bar on the HUD under Display options.
  
• The HUD top bars now display the players' steam names instead of their profile tags.
  
• Air Armada's background now uses a texture instead of a hard-coded color.

A small change to make Zetterburn's NSPECIAL behave like it used to before we adjusted double jump and aerial attack buffers earlier this year.

• Zetterburn's NSPECIAL now overrides the double jump aerial buffer, meaning you can buffer a doublejump out of it easier.

Bugs patched! Thanks for sharing your reports.

• Fixed declining a casual mode rematch booting you back to the online menu.
  
• Fixed workshop mode forcing itself on after every match in local VS and local Tournament modes.
  
• Fixed Forsburn's clone destroying other players' articles on death.
  
• Fixed online CSS screens with Abyss mode enabled not playing the correct music.
  
• Fixed online profiles not saving color palettes (for real this time).

The future continues! The world of Aether hits the digital shelves for the second time with the release of Tales of Aether – Future Imperfect Issue 2 on ComiXology. Issue #2 is available now for $2.99, and dives deeper into Clairen's fiery backstory. Learn more about the world of Aether and its heroes in volume 2 of our debut series.



Future Imperfect is a 4 part series, and we're excited for Tales of Aether to allow fans to see their favorite characters come to life in comic form. This mini-series expands on the story told in Clairen’s introductory trailer, and what happens to the world of Aether in a dark but not so distant future.





We’re also exited to bring the series to ComiXology, where we can reach readers around the world on their favorite way to read digitally. Fans can look for future volumes published under Aether Studios to find the latest issue when it comes out to keep up with the story.







We hope you enjoy the second issue of Future Imperfect, and also pick up the first issue from ComiXology if you haven't already! More issues will be coming soon, so make sure to follow! More issues will be coming soon, so make sure to follow @StudiosOfAether for updates, as well as our star-studded team working on it:

• Publisher: Dan Fornace
  
• Writer and Editor: Ian Flynn
  
• Pencils, Inks, Cover: Jack Lawrence
  
• Colors, Cover: Matt Herms
  
• Letterer: Jack Morelli

Things have been busy in the world of Rivals since our last patch with the announcement of Aether Studios, new games, characters, projects, and much more! This update includes some quality of life changes along with standard bug fixes while rollback and other larger content updates are underway behind the scenes.

• If you switch characters during a ranked set, losses will apply to the new character you switched to if your first character can't lose any more stars.
• The results screen no longer shows "+0" on coins earned.
• When losing a money match, coins are now subtracted the moment the match ends.
• The music player in the CSS now has an option to change the music volume, similar to the button on Stage Select.
• Fixed the Random Stages rule sometimes picking Rock Wall twice in a row and never picking Fire Capital.
• Common SFX like standard swipes and blows now have a very slightly random pitch each time they're played.

• Stage select now displays the names of custom characters instead of just "Custom".
• Practice mode now displays a prompt to press F5 to reload workshop content when debugging using the Ctrl+8 errors on mode.
• New macros added to get_local_setting():
  SET_FX_QUALITY, SET_HUD_SHAKE, SET_RETRO_FX, and SET_LANGUAGE

• Kragg's Up Tilt sprite now matches the hitbox better.
• Kragg's rock can no longer be thrown if it's already in the process of being broken.

• Absa's FStrong final hitbox has been lowered by 1 pixel, and its height has been reduced by 1 pixel, to prevent outlying behavior where it could hit only attacking players on Spirit Tree's platforms.

• Ori & Sein no longer gets their doublejump back after hitting someone with Dair and airdodging out of it.
  
  • They still keep their doublejump if they had it in the first place.

• Fixed various minor sprite errors like missing pixels in Elliana's crouch, Ranno's Up Tilt, Kragg's Down Tilt, and stray pixels in Ori and Sein's Nair.
• News links on the main menu are now clickable again.
• Fixed an odd crash when changing pages on the workshop character CSS.
• Hydroplaning FStrong forwards now properly keeps its momentum once again. In addition, hydroplaning FStrong forwards now works via the strong button as well as with the right stick.
• Fixed profiles not saving properly when exiting online lobbies, causing preferred palettes to be stuck on one option.
• Fixed the plant hazards on Aether Treetop not dragging you all the way down to the bottom blastzone.
• Fixed win counts being displayed incorrectly on online stage select.
• Fixed rune colors on workshop characters being inconsistent with base cast runes.
• Fixed spectators being unable to favorite replays.
• Fixed replays using the incorrect player names if you were a spectator.
• Fixed a crash when exiting the replay menu immediately after quitting a replay.
• Fixed controls being stuck after inputting an incorrect cheatcode.
• Fixed
  get_match_setting()
  not properly getting the time and stock when overridden by the stage. It will now always pick what the option was before the match started.
• Fixed an article's
  player_id
  not actually being set correctly if spawned via another article.

The future is here! The world of Aether hits the digital shelves for the first time with the release of Tales of Aether – Future Imperfect on ComiXology. Issue #1 is available now for $2.99, and dives into Clairen’s fiery backstory. Learn more about the world of Aether and its heroes in volume 1 of our debut series.



Future Imperfect is a 4 part series, and we’re excited for Tales of Aether to allow fans to see their favorite characters come to life in comic form. This mini-series expands on the story told in Clairen’s introductory trailer, and what happens to the world of Aether in a dark but not so distant future.





We’re also exited to bring the series to ComiXology, where we can reach readers around the world on their favorite way to read digitally. Fans can look for future volumes published under Aether Studios to find the latest issue when it comes out to keep up with the story.







We hope you enjoy the first issue of Future Imperfect, and let us know in the comments what you think! More issues will be coming soon, so make sure to follow @StudiosOfAether for updates, as well as our star-studded team working on it

• Publisher: Dan Fornace
  
• Writer and Editor: Ian Flynn
  
• Pencils, Inks, Cover: Jack Lawrence
  
• Colors, Cover: Matt Herms
  
• Letterer: Jack Morelli

It’s April Fools Day and that means our team just spent a massive amount of time on an elaborate holiday spectacle. This year, we came back with our third Rivals Direct. But because we constantly have to keep one-upping the previous year, we couldn’t just simply do another plain, boring direct. We had to push ourselves to the limit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzZeDx-Fwts

And that’s how Twitch Plays Rivals Direct was born. The fans who joined in the Twitch Stream were able to influence the direct itself and even play both Rivals and Creatures through voting in chat.



We also returned to the world of Lovers of Aether but two years have passed since our last visit so instead of Aether High, we stop at Aether University. Adam Carra was the host again but this time as Adam Capybara as he found himself inside the Lovers world. Viewers helped Adam make dialog decisions, complete minigames, and navigate Aether University as he tried to uncover content trailers from the game’s characters. Inputs from Twitch chat controlled the experience to create an out-of-the-ordinary direct that was loaded with Aether reveals.

Tales of Aether

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW1ESznI6Kc
The first reveal was a new trailer for Tales of Aether, a comic series set in the Aether universe. As many fans were expected, we’re confirming that the first comic series will follow the story of Clairen, the Flame’s Salvation. The comic will be released later in 2021 and you’ll have to wait just a little longer to find out how to get your hands on it.

Rivals Workshop Character Pack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK71Zc3JA-Q
Since we launched Steam Workshop support for Rivals of Aether in 2019, we have been amazed at the sheer amount of creative and wild characters that creators have posted to our workshop. There have been over 1600 characters posted and we set our eyes on four of the best original creations to bring into the Rivals of Aether universe. These four characters will officially be joining the roster in an update later this year!

Grassroot Elements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SX1LXdWqOE
Your favorite Youtuber Adam Carra is back and he’s about to outdo even himself. Adam is working on a new documentary focused on the development of Rivals of Aether and its competitive scene. You’ll get to see how the journey started along with some fantastic interviews with players, developers, organizers, and other community members. The documentary is sure to get you hyped as local competition eventually returns!

Creatures of Aether

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9MQzz0pSZg
Creatures of Aether has made a ton of progress since its launch in September 2020. We have increased the Rivals from 5 to 11 adding a new one each month. The newest Rival, Fleet, is a protagonist from our upcoming title Dungeons of Aether. We also announced today that Creatures of Aether is coming to Steam this summer so you can play it with your favorite mouse and keyboard. We are hoping to get more players into the game with the Steam release. Join the Official Discord today if you are interested in Creatures of Aether.

Rivals Rollback Netcode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFGedR-jS6k
For those of you who have been following Rivals development, you know that Rollback has been a long time coming. Thanks to the work of YellowAfterlife and Zach Reedy, we have finally gotten to the point where the game state is saving and loading in a reasonable time. We’re hunting down desyncs and feel confident that we can get players into a 1v1 Open Beta on Steam sometime this Summer™. Follow Rivals of Aether on Twitter for updates on how the rollback netcode is progressing.

Dungeons of Aether

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyOPt3iH1Mg
We announced today the genre of our upcoming game Dungeons of Aether – it’s a turn-based roguelite. We have an amazing team working on this pixel-perfect adventure in Aether and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on it in 2022. We also revealed another protagonist today named Artemis. She’s an elite warrior who is part of the Fire Mora and is sent on a secret mission by Loxodont that lands her in Julesvale. We have two protagonists left to reveal before the game launches so stay tuned!

Aether Studios

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdeE-SJJOYg
The Direct ended with Adam finally getting his hands on the 3D folder revealing a new project that our team is working on. We have graduated past the humble Dan Fornace LLC and a new team is building the next big adventure in Aether. We don’t have a ton more news to share on this project just yet but enjoy the teaser and follow Aether Studios on Twitter to get more updates.

Wrap-up

And that was everything. It was an amazing experience being able to play with fans and reveal all this content. All I know is that next year, April Fools Day needs to be canceled.

• Press Kit

Rivals of Aether is back with our biggest annual event! Join the dev team and work together as a community to interact with our announcement stream while learning about our current and upcoming projects.

The event starts at 10 AM PT / 12 PM CT / 1 PM ET, join us on https://www.twitch.tv/rivalsofaether/

It’s that time of year! The snow is melting. The sun is staying out longer. And the Rivals of Aether team is preparing for another over-the-top and waste-of-developer-resources April Fools day event.





If you have been following our development, you may have realized that April 1st has slowly become the Rivals of Aether update day. What started as joke blog posts a few years ago grew into our first Rivals Direct in 2018, then the release of an entire free dating sim game called Lovers of Aether in 2019, then Rivals Direct 2 in 2020. Now we’re back for 2021 and we have to go even bigger and even better because I don’t value my sanity.





We are going above and beyond for Rivals Direct 3. This year we are getting the most important character involved – you! We’re inviting fans to come influence the Direct itself while we announce new updates in the Rivals of Aether universe. That’s right, we are doing a Twitch Plays version of the Rivals Direct. For those unfamiliar with the genre of Twitch Plays, fans will be able to use the Twitch chat to cast their vote and influence what content we show off.





As far as I’m aware, this is the first time a developer has ever done something like this for a live reveal. And that makes sense, because we are extremely stupid when it comes to generating ideas for April 1st. You can only imagine the work and organization required to pull this off. Hopefully we can do it, right?





Now, I know what you’re all asking. Will your favorite youtuber, Adam Carra, be returning for his third Rivals Direct? And to that, I can give you an emphatic “I guess you’ll have to watch it.”


The direct will premiere at 10 AM PT April 1st on Twitch. You’ll want to mark your calendar so you can influence the event with all the fans. The video of the direct will be posted on YouTube after the event.


If you would like to make an article about our Direct check out our press resources for this special event here: Direct 3 Presskit.

Each month we hold a free to enter, online major with fantastic prizes for beginners and veterans alike. This month is our epic finale!

Our finals comes to a close with our Top 8 competing for their share of a prize pool of $10k+

In addition to our usual Twitch Stream featuring favorite community commentators, we will also be broadcasting once again on Steam. Make sure to catch the action, as players compete for massive prizes!

Here is the information for Top 8 of our Finals Stream:

• Date: January 17, 2020
  
• Singles Top 8: 7PM ET / 6PM CT / 4PM PT

All matches can be viewed right here on our steam store/event pages, or on our Twitch.

For our main event, Rivals Singles, all participants will receive a Champion Ori skin just for participating.
Players who reach phase 2 will earn the brand new Champion Shovel Knight skin.
Top 32 finishers will earn their share of a $10k+ cash prize pool from the RCS Championship Chest.
+ even more league prizes for continued high placement and participation...

Join our official discord to get the latest updates on the event and talk to other players. We are also holding separate finals event for our European and Australian communities.