Rivals of Aether II News

Rivals of Aether II will be in October's Steam Next Fest in just one week! We'll have a demo version of the game available from October 14th 10am PT - October 21st 10am PT available for free to EVERYONE.

While this demo won't include all of our launch features, it has almost everything the game will offer, plus some brand new features not previously available in any betas or playtests:

🔥 Forsburn makes his playable debut!
🔥 Character progression during the demo will CARRY OVER to the full game!

Wishlist on Steam if you haven't already to get notified when the demo drops.




In other news, we've also got developer deep dives happening this week. These are videos following up on our first in the series where we laid out details on the game for our community.

A big part of being an indie studio to us is being transparent with our players, and we'll also be holding a Q&A to answer your burning questions before Next Fest. Fill out your own or upvote ones you'd like to see answered over on our nolt board.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thanks for following along with our passion project, and we can't wait to get Rivals of Aether II into everyone's hands later this month!

The official release date is finally revealed... Rivals of Aether II launches on Steam October 23rd!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Now that our release date is on the horizon, we've got tons to look forward to. Stay tuned for more news about Rivals II on the way to launch including a full Forsburn character trailer, our September playtest next weekend, updates on our roadmap, and more!

It's been a long journey together so far, and we couldn't be more grateful to all of our supporters for following along. If you haven't yet, make sure to wishlist Rivals II today and get ready for our September playtest weekend and upcoming launch here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2217000/Rivals_of_Aether_II/

We’re excited to announce that our upcoming September Beta weekend (running from Sept. 27 - 29) will be our first semi-open Steam beta. This means that anyone will now be able to sign up to be a potential playtester on the Rivals 2 Steam page, with a lucky few receiving their invites on the beta weekend. If you’re a player who already has guaranteed access, you’ll be able to play the beta as usual and won’t need to worry about being chosen through Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2217000/Rivals_2/
Head to the Rivals 2 store page on Steam to signup for a chance at beta access on September 27-29th.

Make sure to wishlist Rivals 2 while you’re on the signup page if you haven’t yet, since it’s a big help to our studio even if you don’t end up buying the game.

The September Beta weekend will also feature an exciting competitive event to watch this month. We’ve invited top players based on past beta elo and wins to duke it out and claim the title of Champion of the Beta. Since this beta is our last planned beta 👀we’ll get to see who’s the best of the best out of all our playtests this year.

Stay tuned for more news on where to watch and about our official release date coming soon! Thanks as always for joining us on our development journey so far.

This month we got a bunch of new features in while we wrapped up the summer season of development. Remember as we get closer to the end of the year and our previously announced Q4 launch, updates are going to start coming in hot. Make sure to especially pay attention in September for more news!

If you haven't been following the project closely, we're currently doing closed betas leading up to launch later this year. Even though the betas are closed we're still sharing dev updates so you can follow along on the project. Here's what we've been working on for August:



The emote feature returns from the original Rivals of Aether for our current backer beta. We enjoyed the throwback of using pixel art for these done by Ellian, our longtime animator from Rivals 1.

The emote system is our one and only approved way to trash talk (and talk to your opponent in general). We've got a bunch of emotes everyone will be able to to use to start off with, and you can also unlock more emotes to add to your collection.

Dan emoting in game next to Dan emoting in Real Life.



We're introducing the palette feature this month, making new colors and looks available for skins. Our first two palettes available to test are black palettes available with beta coins for Clairen and Loxodont. Unlock them in the shop to try them yourself!

For just 300 beta coins, two palettes can be yours.



Training mode got a big level up this beta as we work to flesh it out even more. A brand new menu is now accessible through the pause screen while in training mode with new options like:

• Set the CPU behavior state (Stand, Shield, etc.).
  
• You can now set Damage and a DI mode for the CPU.
  
• Give the CPU tech, getup, and counter options.
  
• Turn on THE GRID.
  

Ah yes, Zetterburn's fireball goes 3 far.



We have implemented basic disconnect/reconnect handling this patch. If you crash out of a match or lobby (or simply drop from a bad connection), there's now a special button in the online tab that lets you rejoin.

We consider this a V1 of the feature as it doesn't pause the ongoing match or anything, but you're able to hop back into your lobby with your friends now instead of having to have everyone leave and make a new lobby. We're looking forward to building on this in the future and hope it makes players lives a bit easier even in this form.



We have new default servers available for South America and Latin America. These servers are located in Lima, Peru, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile. We also have Mexico City, Mexico, which will be entirely new for this beta! We've made efforts to add these based on feedback in our nolt board, so let us know if you're in an underrepresented region that could benefit.





The August beta has new patch notes for each character, along with some general engine changes across the board. We've done our best to address hot topics and you can read the full (very verbose) notes in our August Patchnotes Article. Here's some of the highlights for a TL;DR:

• Loxodont got a bunch of love, including sour spot buffs on his strong attacks plus a brand new way to interact with his boulder using side special.
  
• Floorhugging now requires a downward hard press as a way to greatly increase the difficulty. This makes it still useful in the areas we want it to be, while avoiding all of the accidental floorhugs in previous patches that made it so prevalent.
  
• Many characters had their hitstun gravity changed to be less extreme and moved closer to the average. This makes it easier to combo floaties, and also should alleviate some complaints about the combo game at low percents.
  
• We brought back some mechanics from Rivals 1 like being able to slide while parrying (especially good for dealing with bubbles or Lily) and another that make fastfall platdrop aerials easier.
  

You might have noticed that August was the last month on our roadmap we originally posted when we first started doing these betas all the way back in Spring. Going forward, as we close in on our announced release range of "Q4", we'll be taking things month by month:

[h2]September Beta Details[/h2]

Our September beta will take place on September 27 - 29. This beta will have a new twist, and be the first beta with a limited number of slots available for anyone to join. We'll be sharing more news in September on how you can get on the list for a chance to be chosen to play via the Steam playtest feature. Make sure to wishlist the game if you haven't yet, as we'll also be posting the news here!

[h2]Wrapping Up[/h2]

If you'd like to get involved with the closed beta with guaranteed access immediately, checkout our website for details!



Following this beta, we will have developers present at PAX West next weekend AND at Riptide the following weekend, so come say hi, play the game, and meet some of the team!

As always, thank you for all of your support!

This month’s dev update features our 9th Rival revealed for the launch roster, more news from Evo 2024, plus an update on what we checked off from our roadmap this month. Read on for details:



In case you missed it, last weekend Aether Studios went to Evo 2024 (the largest and longest-running fighting game tournament in the world) where we showed off the latest build of Rivals 2.



We were incredibly excited to have the stage Friday to reveal our 9th Rival in the roster - Orcane! Orcane returns with his slippery and all around adorable gameplay, plus some new tricks like teleporting with his opponents through his puddle. Check out his reveal trailer if you haven’t yet:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We also created a moveset breakdown that goes through every one of his attacks for a thorough look at how he plays. Check out that Orcane Moveset Breakdown video here.



Our other big Evo announcement was that all future characters in Rivals 2 after launch will be FREE updates to the game. No paid character DLCs or grinding required.



We know the typical lifeblood of a fighting game comes from character releases as the game grows, so our plan is to make them unlocked and playable for everyone as soon as they’re available. As players this is the type of model we’d like to see, and we hope it catches on and works out for everyone. We have plans for tons of characters after launch and can’t wait to expand the roster. If you want to support us over the long haul we’ll have cosmetics to help sustain the game, but we'll make sure you won’t be able to buy a competitive edge.


Today is our next Backer Beta, taking place from July 26th at 8am PT - July 28th at 11:59pm PT. Here’s what’s included in this beta from our roadmap, plus a few bonus items that snuck in:

• Orcane Now Available
  • You can now play as Orcane!. We’d love your feedback on our latest Rival. Help us out by sharing any bugs you find and as well as giving us your suggestions!
    
• Matchmaking Logic Added
  • This wasn’t on the roadmap, but we were able to add in an early version of matchmaking as a bonus feature to our 1v1 and Doubles queues with the goal of improving the fairness of the games you’ll find. We know upfront this will need some tweaking, so let us know your feedback about your matchmaking experience and queue times this weekend.
    
• More Player Inventory Testing
  • Character specific spawn platforms have been added! During this beta all of the base character platforms will be available for testing. Swap them out on any character and let us know if you run into any bugs. In the future these nine base platforms will be unlockable via character progression.
    
• More Beta Coin Shop Items Added
  
  You can unlock these with the coins you earn through playing and keep them post-launch! All six items currently in the coin shop will return in August’s backer beta, so don’t fret if you can’t get them all this weekend.
  

• Region Preferences Added
  
  • You can now set a region preference for where the server will be located in your lobbies. This overrides how the game automatically tries to calculate and choose the best server between all players in your lobby.
    
• Camera Tools
  
  • Another bonus feature going in this beta is our new CAMERA TOOLZ. This is something we’ve been developing behind the scenes to help make our beautiful character reveal trailers, and this month it’s far enough along to let creators play with it. Set up cameras and keyframes in your replays to export amazing footage and bring your visuals to the next level.
    
  Let us know what else you’d like to see from this tool! Please keep in mind the version available during this beta is a very early version.
  

One last thing to add regarding our roadmap - we originally intended to test emotes this month for the first time, but unfortunately this feature is not quite ready. We’ll be delaying this to the August beta. Don’t forget to give us your feedback and suggestions on all the new changes this month.




We’ve got one more beta planned to close out the summer after this one ends. Don’t worry we know that our current roadmap ends in August, so expect more news and an expansion on what to look forward to as we get closer. We hope you all enjoy the latest beta this weekend.



If you’re looking for official Rivals events next month make sure to tune in for Rivals 2 at Supernova, and stop by and say “hi” if you’ll be at PAX West in Seattle!