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Rivals Championship Series Season 6

Get ready for RCS Season 6!


Following the record-shattering attendance of Riptide and the recent announcement of Genesis 8, we are ecstatic to announce the newest Rivals Championship Series installment! Season 6 of the RCS will bring back monthly Online Majors, but will also mark the return of live events with our first hybrid season. Join us as we celebrate Rivals in even more regions on our biggest stages yet!


We're going workshop steam punk for Season 6!

[h2]Format and Schedule[/h2]

Despite the tough year last season was a fantastic success thanks to our community, breaking attendance records on multiple occasions during an exclusively online season set on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moving into Season 6, we have seen local events slowly emerge with the increasing accessibility of vaccines. Keeping this in mind, we are bringing the North American RCS back to in-person majors on three separate occasions in conjunction with four unique online majors.

With a live finals event planned this year, we are also bringing back flight vouchers for the Top 4 North American league point holders at the conclusion of our December online event. North American players who top the leader board during the regular season will be given a complimentary flight to our Finals at Genesis 8. For our friends in Europe and Australia, the top point holder from each region will be awarded 500 USD for their accomplishments.

[h2]Here is our official schedule:[/h2]

  • Riptide (Registration Cap Reached) - September 10-12,2021 - Sandusky, OH (NA)
  • Hot Springs Major (Registration OPEN) - September 18, 2021 - Online (NA)
  • Hot Springs Major (EU/AU Registration TBA) - September 2021 - Online (EU/AU)
  • Melody Major (Registration TBA) - October 2021 - Online (NA/EU/AU)
  • Unannounced Live Event - November 2021 - TBA (NA)
  • Fireworks Major (Registration TBA) - November 2021 - Online (NA/EU/AU)
  • Crystal Major (Registration TBA) - December 2021 - Online (NA/EU/AU)
  • EU/AU Regional Finals (Registration TBA) - January 2022 - Online (EU/AU)
  • RCS Finals at Genesis 8 (Registration OPEN) - January 28-30, 2022 - San Jose, CA (NA)


More information regarding events in Europe, Australia, South America, and Asia can be found below.



[h2]Regional Finals and Opt-In Events[/h2]

We are aware that the COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing battle, with some areas struggling to return to a sense of normalcy more than others. In order to accommodate regions affected by event uncertainty and travel restrictions, we are introducing regional online finals for Europe and Australia. Each finals event will feature uncapped shop goals to allow players to fund their own scenes directly. In addition to our new finals events, we have a brand new Opt-In system for local events in Europe and Australia, and online events for the emerging regions of South America and Asia.

[h3]For Europe and Australia:[/h3]

As local events return in a safe and functional manner, tournament organizers will be able to apply for RCS prize support for their events.
Events added through our Opt-In system will receive prize support but will not give players league points in order to prevent unfair advantages on the leader boards.

[h3]For South America and Asia:[/h3]

South America and Asia will both have opportunities to receive DLC support on par with the other regions.
Tournament organizers from each region will be allowed to apply for one event every month, starting in September, to receive new and older RCS exclusive skin rewards.
Sub-regions that are unable to compete in certain events, such as Brazil, can contact SBS or Etalus to ensure that they can have their own tournaments included.



[h2]Monthly Themes[/h2]

Elemental themed months are returning from Season 5 with a fun twist! Starting in September, each month leading up to our January finals will have a special theme based on characters from the upcoming Workshop Character Pack that will affect how the community interacts with the series including special bundles from our upcoming shop, a chance to acquire brand new and previously retired RCS DLC skins, and even unique prize opportunities for competitors participating in each major.

When each month's major event comes around, we highly encourage players to record every character used on their tournament runs. The highest placing competitor to exclusively use rivals matching the month's elemental theme will receive an item from the Season 6 RCS shop. If a player happens to WIN the monthly major using only Rivals matching the month's elemental theme, they will be awarded a voucher from us for a custom controller by our friends at Controller Chaos.

[h2]Season 6 Reward Structure[/h2]

As mentioned above, there will be special rewards for the highest placing player(s) using only rivals matching each month's elemental theme, but that's not all. Each month's online event will have a dedicated prize pool and each finals event will have an uncapped prize pool, all funded by our shop. On the DLC front, we are happy to introduce brand new skins (TBA) for participants of each online major. Offline events will also feature pot bonus compendium goals and new themed skins!



[h2]Season 6 Rankings[/h2]

For those curious about how our yearly rankings will be weighed, players looking to qualify for the Season 6 Top 50 will need to enter a minimum of 3 RCS events. We understand that there may be some hesitancy for players to mix online and offline events together, so players will only be ranked according to their placements at their best three events of Season 6 (player matchups may still be considered for all events).

[h2]Links![/h2]

This post has a lot of information to digest, so please refer to all relevant links for event pages! Stay tuned in the weeks to come for more RCS news as we lead up to the start of the season this September!



Registration is now OPEN for our September online event and for Genesis 8!

Workshop Character Pack Progress Update

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?

Tales of Aether Issue #3 Available Now

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?

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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.

Rivals of Aether - 2.0.7.5 Patch Notes

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).

Tales of Aether Volume 2 Available Now on ComiXology

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.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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: