Rivals of Aether II News

This weekend, we headed out to Las Vegas for Evo 2024 to share a few exciting announcements during this jam-packed year of development. With the game coming out in Q4 this year, we’re approaching the homestretch. Check out the summary of everything below!



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Orcane returns to Rivals 2! He’s the 9th character revealed so far out of our 10 slated for launch. Translating him to 3D was quite the challenge for our team with all of his watery shapeshifting and teleporting attacks, but we’re really happy with how he turned out. We hope you agree he looks right at home in the new trailer on merchant port.





Our other big Evo announcement was that all future characters in Rivals 2 after release will be free updates to the game! No paid character DLC or grinding required. We'll have cosmetics to help sustain the game, but you won't be able to buy a competitive edge.

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. We have plans for tons of characters after launch and can’t wait to expand the roster.





Orcane will be available to play starting Friday 7/26 for the July Backer Beta weekend. If you can’t wait and want to see more Orcane before then, check out his in-depth moveset breakdown video here:

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Stay tuned for more announcements on Rivals 2 soon!

Watch backers and devs clash in the newest build of Rivals 2

As we get closer to release with more news to share, we think it’s about time to start putting out some sizable Steam news updates each month. For those following along, we’re still on track to release the game in Q4 this year, and are looking forward to revealing a release date as we get closer. This month was big for us and we’ve got plenty to share, so time for some dev logs!


We started doing monthly betas this Spring for our Kickstarter backers, and this weekend is our third one. We’ve been hard at work with this being the most feature heavy update yet.



There's a TON of new features in this beta including:

• Skins - You can now style on your opponents in style and customize your look.
  
• Character Progression - Level up your characters by gaining experience as you play matches. Our progression system is completely cosmetic, and as your characters level up, you’ll unlock rewards plus currency like Aether Coins.
  
• Beta Coin Shop - Spend your Aether Coins you earn from playing to unlock a variety of cosmetics for your character. Finally there’s something to do with your Aether Coins instead of hoarding them like Rivals 1!
  
• New Servers - New server technology allows for smarter routing and better connections.
  
• Balance Changes - We’ve made tweaks across the board to try and find the sweet spot for what makes Rivals 2 fun. We want to hear your thoughts so leave us your latest balance feedback and game suggestions on our June Suggestions Nolt Board.
  

If you’d like to get your hands on the game early in these backer beta rounds, you can still Late Pledge over on our PledgeManager page. Kickstarter betas currently happen one weekend per month.




This month also started off with a big announcement that we’re teaming up with Offbrand Games as our official co-publishing partner on Rivals 2. This partnership brings a lot of exciting opportunities for Rivals 2 players in the future - including more Rivals focused events, content, and eyes on our community! The news was announced on IGN Live with Ludwig, Thor from PirateSoftware, and Dan.

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We think Offbrand is a perfect fit for us. They're going to complement our indie studio by letting us focus on making a great game, while they focus on bringing more eyes to our community with marketing and events. We’re incredibly excited for the future and this partnership is a win for everyone who’s a fan of Rivals!



[h3]Workshop Contest Winner Reveal[/h3]
Last year we announced a crossover event that spanned both Rivals 1 and Rivals 2 with our new Workshop Character Contest. Creators were asked to submit original characters to our dev team with the winner being chosen to eventually become a character in Rivals 2.

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We had over 80 submissions of amazingly designed characters, and next week on the one year anniversary of the contest we’ll reveal the winner. Check out the characters in the Rivals 1 workshop and try them out yourself! Make sure to keep an eye out for the news on 7/3 to see a preview of a future character in Rivals 2.

[h3]Summer Events[/h3]
We’ll be at a few events this summer with a playable pre-release build of Rivals 2. Make sure to stop by to chat with us and play the latest build!

• Evo 2024 - We’ll have a booth at EVO again this year and are looking forward to sharing some news there on what’s coming for the July backer beta. Stop by and play!
  
  
• PAX West 2024 - More of the team will be at PAX West since it’s held in the studio’s “home city” of Seattle. We’ll be bringing our some new and old merch so make sure to come by to browse and play.
  
  
• Riptide 2024 - This 3-day waterpark tournament is a community favorite. We’ll be there with brackets for both Rivals 2 and Rivals 1. Registration is still open so sign up now.
  

Thanks for following along with our updates! Look out for another developer update next month with more exciting news as we get closer to launch.

Rivals 2 is coming in 2024! And we need YOUR help to cross the finish line.

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We’ve officially launched our Kickstarter for Rivals 2 which you can find HERE. Supporting our Kickstarter will give Rivals 2 its final push to be released in 2024 with rich features including online play, ranked ladder, and story mode. Be sure to check out the Kickstarter page for all the details on reward tiers for backing the project and stretch goals!

Last weekend we were honored and excited to take part in the Evo 2023 announcement showcase. After all, it was attending Evo 2013 ten years ago that originally ignited our passion to create Rivals of Aether. Here's a recap from what Studio Lead Dan Fornace shared on stage for the latest updates on Rivals 2.



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Maypul joins the cast in Rivals 2 as the newest character in our 2024 launch roster! The Sylvan Watcher returns with her trusty plant companion Lily, along with 2 new friends Terry and Poppy. You can see more of her abilities in our Maypul Moveset Breakdown.





We're also excited to announce that Rivals 2 will feature server-based multiplayer. To do this, we are licensing the incredible SnapNet netcode solution built by High Horse Entertainment.

While most fighting games are peer-to-peer, moving to a server-based rollback solution gives us distinct advantages.

The most obvious is that our 4 player lobbies will be much more responsive and stable than peer-to-peer connections would allow. This is great news for fans of team battles.

But another huge advantage is that your own experience will be much more consistent across the player base, even in 1v1 matches. If you match up against little timmy on a 10 year-old laptop, it won’t ruin your gameplay.

We were blown away by what Snapnet was able to do in our testing. Rollback netcode was a massive leap forward for the fighting game industry, and we believe that SnapNet will be another leap forward for the platform fighting genre.



As we get closer to our planned 2024 release, stay up to date and support the studio by wishlisting the game. We appreciate everyone who's looking forward to Rivals 2!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2217000/Rivals_2/