European Rivals Championship Series Finals Month

By SBS — December 30, 2020

Earlier this month we outlined the pay structure for the European finals in a separate article. Now, we are happy to announce the details for the EU RCS Finals month!

EU Finals Week

Similar to other regions, we have decided to make the EU RCS Finals a multi-day event, with both Singles and Doubles on the docket. Each event will be played and streamed on the official Rivals of Aether Twitch over the course of of the weekend.

Here is our current schedule:

Saturday, January 23rd: Rivals Doubles and Rivals Singles!
- Rivals Doubles will be hosted as a for-fun event with no prize pool.
  - Bracket will play up to Top 8 (subject to change based on total entrants).
- Rivals Singles, our main event, with a stacking prize prize pool of up to $2,500!
  - Top 12 from the RCS season will automatically advance into the second phase of bracket, skipping Phase 1 Pools.
  - Bracket will play up to Top 8.
Sunday, January 23rd: Rivals Doubles Finals and Rivals Singles Finals!
- Rivals Doubles Finals to completion.
- Rivals Singles Top 8 to completion.

Players will be able to earn the brand new Champion Ori and Shovel Knight skins just for playing and for reaching phase two of the Singles bracket, respectively.

Singles Prize Structure

While this was covered in a previous article, we wanted to reiterate the prize pool for any players who may have missed the news.

European Finals will be a two day event with a stacking prize pool.
- Starting prize pool will be $1,500
- At 150 entrants, there will be an additional $500 added to the pool for a total of $2,000.
- At 200 entrants, there will be an additional $500 added to the pool for a total of $2,500.

Friday Tournaments with BIG Prizes

While there is no elemental theme for the month itself, the EU weekly Discord events hosted by OliveOily have been such a hit, we wanted to honor them! After the New Year’s Holiday, we are going to celebrate each week with the phase 2 DLC prize from each Elemental Major.

January 1st: No prize due to the Holiday. OliveOily has been kind enough to run a stress free bracket for those who still want to get their Rivals fix!
January 8th: All participants earn a Champion Clairen skin.
January 15th: All participants earn a Champion Elliana skin.
January 22nd: All participants earn a Champion Maypul skin.
January 29th: All participants earn a Champion Ranno skin.

EU Finals Signups are Open HERE

Categories: Announcement, Community, Esports, Events, News | Comments: 1

Rivals Championship Series Finals Month

By SBS — December 10, 2020

RCS Finals Month is Coming!

January marks the end of our 5th Season of the Rivals Championship Series. Each year we bring our Series to a crescendo with a massive finals event, bringing top players together from around the world with huge pot bonuses and a finals day event at the Paramount Theatre on Genesis Finals day.

We can’t wait for the return of offline events

To accompany each RCS season, we put together a compendium to support Rivals Esports, featuring skins and other merch with 100% of profits going to our community. The compendium shop for Season 5 would fund every single RCS Major in each of our three regions.

Collectively, the Rivals community helped raise over $20,000 for RCS events with $5,200 adding to Developer matches for our regular season events and $15,000 for the finals. Even our sponsor, Hit Box, joined the fray by contributing an additional $2,000! The RCS Season 5 Finals promises to be the biggest online tournament Rivals has ever seen.

To add to our fabulous prizes, players will be able to earn the brand new Champion Ori and Shovel Knight skins just for playing and for reaching phase two of the Singles bracket, respectively.

Let’s take a look at what’s to come:

NA Finals Week

True to our roots, we have decided to make the RCS Finals a multi-day event, chock full of side events! On the docket we have our main Rivals Singles event, Rivals Workshop, Rivals Doubles, and Tetherball Doubles. All events will be streamed on the official Rivals of Aether Twitch and Steam accounts.

Here is our current schedule:

Friday, January 15th: A high stakes Tetherball Doubles event!
- All participants earn a Champion Elliana skin for participating.
- Players will compete for their share of a $500 prize pool.

Saturday, January 16th: Rivals Doubles, Rivals Workshop, and Rivals singles!
- Rivals Doubles returns to our finals with a $1,000 prize pool.
  - Bracket will play up to Top 8 (subject to change based on total entrants).
- Rivals Workshop has been thriving since its creation, now we bring it back to the RCS finals with a $1,000 prize pool!
  - Bracket will play up to Top 16 (subject to change based on total entrants).
- Rivals Singles is our main event with a prize pool of over $10,000!
  - Bracket will play up to Top 32.
Sunday, January 17th: Finals for Rivals Doubles, Rivals Workshop, and Rivals singles!
- Rivals Doubles to completion
- Rivals Workshop to completion
- Rivals Singles to completion

Friday Tournaments with BIG Prizes

While there is no elemental theme for the month itself, our weekly Discord events hosted by TheFailWhale and Menace13 have been such a hit, we wanted to honor them! After the New Year’s Holiday, we are going to celebrate each week with the phase 2 DLC prize from each Elemental Major.

January 1st: No prize due to the Holiday. TheFailWhale and Menace13 have been kind enough to run a stress free bracket for those who still want to get their Rivals fix!
January 8th: All participants earn a Champion Clairen skin.
January 15th: All participants earn a Champion Elliana skin. This event will double as the RCS Finals Tetherball event.
January 22nd: All participants earn a Champion Maypul skin.
January 29th: All participants earn a Champion Ranno skin.

EU Finals

More information is on its way regarding the European RCS Finals, but we wanted to cover prize splits before dates are formally announced.

European Finals will be a two day event with a stacking prize pool.
- Starting prize pool will be $1,500
- At 150 entrants, there will be an additional $500 added to the pool for a total of $2,000.
- At 200 entrants, there will be an additional $500 added to the pool for a total of $2,500

AU Finals

More information is on its way regarding the Australian RCS Finals, but we wanted to cover prize splits before dates are formally announced.

Australian Finals will be a two day event with a stacking prize pool.
- Starting prize pool will be $1,000
- At 75 entrants, there will be an additional $250 added to the pool for a total of $1,250.
- At 125 entrants, there will be an additional $250 added to the pool for a total of $1,500.

NA Finals Signups are Open HERE

Categories: Announcement, Community, Esports, Events, News | Comments: 1

Creatures of Aether Holiday Update!

By SBS — December 9, 2020

Creatures of Aether has a big content update coming December 16th. On top of exciting Holiday Bundles, we are releasing four new mini-legendary cards that are sure to shake up the meta!

This Holiday update caps off a 3 months of updates since the App’s release in September. Let’s take a look at everything happening with Creatures this month.

Season 5

December 1st launched the Season 5 Battle Pass, which saw the release of fan-favorite Rival from the Rivals of Aether series, and face of the Creatures of Aether App icon, Wrastor.

Wrastor allows you to relocate any card without even entering the field!

In addition to the all-new Battle Pass, December 1st also brought a huge update to the ranked ladder, making it much more fun to climb the ladder while also allowing players to check out leaderboards and see the decks that top competitors are using.

Get ideas to improve your own deck and see how you stack up by checking out the Leaderboard!

Still to come, we have four “mini-legendaries” that promise to add even more depth into our constantly evolving game. Rivals of Aether fans may recognize these cards from our greater universe.

Master Cai:

If your opponent doesn’t take the card quickly, Master Cai will poison all their cards on each of your turns.

Swiftwing:

Swiftwing swoops across the board and takes as many cards as he can along his flight path.

Renburn:

Renburn razes the battlefield upon his entrance, taking power away from all cards on the board.

Zolt:

Zolt’s metal coat allows you to chain special abilities through it and forces your opponent to use a capture to remove it, while leaving Zolt un-turned afterwards.

That’s it for December, let’s check out some earlier additions to the game!

Season 4

November 1st launched the Season 4 Battle Pass, bringing Etalus, The Glacier’s Might, and an entirely new card ability, push, to the game!

Etalus freezes any cards he flips upon entering the battlefield!

The new Push ability attracts the nearest cards before casting them to the edge of the field!

There has never been a better time to get into Creatures of Aether and the Holiday sales will continue until the New Year. Get it on iOS and Android today!

Download on Google Play

Download on Apple Store

Categories: Announcement, Community, Development, Esports, News, Patch notes | Comments: 4

Season 5 Top 50 Update

By SBS — November 13, 2020

Rivals Rankings in an Online World

Last season following Genesis 7 and Frostbite 2020, we were excited to unveil the fiercest Top 50 list to date, culminating the accomplishments of players from RCS Majors to smaller grassroots Regional events. This year, everything pointed to an increasingly more powerful ranking, stemming from results in the upcoming Season 5. A brand new Grassroots League season was about to begin, and the highly anticipated RCS was in the planning stages for an intense fifth year. This is where things took a turn.

CakeAssault securing #1 on the season 4 Top 50. Simpler times.

As everyone is well aware, the pandemic shut down life as we know it across the globe. It was a time of uncertainty as we weighed our options moving forward. It was obvious that we could not allow our players to put themselves and others into harms way. Online events would be the responsible option.

We launched our first ever online circuit, the Rivals Online Championship Series (ROCS), with bi-weekly events in North America, Europe, and Australia. At this point, the severity and duration of the pandemic was still shrouded with uncertainty, so the call was made to have the ROCS Finals stand above the six qualifiers leading up to it. The event was announced to both carry the same weight as one of our upcoming scheduled offline events, and have a grand prize voucher to the RCS Season 5 Finals (or $500 should the pandemic continue).

The ROCS, originally planned as a stopgap to fill the void of our canceled offline events.

Fast forward to the ROCS finale. It was obvious that offline events would not be back anytime soon and, with the Definitive Edition around the corner, we wanted to make sure competitive Rivals players could get the attention they deserved. We determined that it was time to move our sacred RCS series to an entirely online format, jam-packed with four community and developer supported themed events and a January Finals.

So Where Does This Leave the Top 50

It was always our intention to cultivate a fifth Top 50 list. While the year has been full of turmoil and unpredictability, this vision has not changed. We will in fact be releasing a North American Online Rivals Top 50 list following the January Finals event, curated with the same attention to detail as the previous years.

Top 50 this season will be judged solely off of the ROCS Finals event, the four Elemental Majors, and the January RCS Finals.

We feel that these six events are without a doubt, indicative of competitive Rivals for this season. Each event has been given special indication of their importance well in advance, with the ROCS Finals initially counting towards the planned offline season and the RCS events donning the name of our most prestigious tournament series. Each event to date has seen over 400 entrants with cash and DLC prizes up for grabs, and players will need to have competed in at least two events to be considered for our upcoming rankings.

Season 5 Ranking Events
ROCS Finals
RCS Fire
RCS Air
RCS Earth
RCS Water
RCS Finals

All events eligible for ranking.

We understand that online rankings are often subjected to skepticism, but we truly want to reward the players who help breath life into our community day in and day out. While this season’s rankings won’t be directly comparable to previous years, it’s still important for us to record this season in our history. Without a dedicated competitive player-base, Rivals as we know it could never exist.

We hope this confirmation can bring excitement to the community, while rewarding those willing to compete in unprecedented circumstances. Three events remain, and it is far from too late to make your mark on the world of Rivals. Good luck!

Categories: Announcement, Esports, News | Comments: 0

Rivals Definitive Edition リリース日

By SBS — September 15, 2020

「Rivals of Aether（ライバルズ・オブ・エーテル）」のDefinitive EditionをNintendo SwitchとSteam向けに、2020年9月24日より配信開始します！

私たちの開発状況を見守り続けてくれたみなさんには、本当に感謝しています。開発がどのように進んでいたのか、なぜここまで開発に時間がかかったのか気になる方は、プロジェクトリーダーのDan Fornaceが書いたこちらのmedium記事をどうぞ（英語）。

「Rivals of Aether 」のDefinitive Editionではたくさんのコンテンツを楽しむことができます。これまでにリリースされた全キャラクターに加え、新たに開発した機能やモードなどの新要素がバンドルとなって実装されます。ゲーム本体やゲストキャラクターのDLC、そしてすべての新要素がひとつのセットになったDefinitive Editionは、3,000円で購入することができます。

Steam上ですでに「Rivals of Aether 」を所有している場合、無料で自動的にDefinitive Editionへとアップグレードされます。

Game Features

12体のオリジナルキャラクターに加え、インディーゲームからはショベルナイトやオリとセインがゲスト参戦。エレメントの力を自在に扱うキャラクターを操作して、「ストーリーモード」でエーテル大陸に起きた混乱の謎を解き明かしたり、フレンドと協力して影の軍勢が襲い来る「アビスモード」を攻略したり、オンライン対戦で世界中のプレイヤーと戦ったりしましょう。

New Modes

「Rivals of Aether 」のDefinitive Editionではアビスモードのアップデートに加え、「テザーボール」というスポーツ風の新モードが登場します。キャラクターを操作して対戦相手やボールを攻撃し、ビーチの王者を目指しましょう！

Upgraded Online Mode

またDefinitive Editionでは、オンライン機能が大幅にアップグレードされます。プレイ可能人数が2人から4人へと増加し、2体2のチーム戦や4人で戦うデスマッチを楽しむことができます。また「アビス対戦モード」や「アビスエンドレスモード」、「テザーボール」もオンライン機能に対応します。

Unlockable Milestones

Definitive Editionでは「マイルストーンシステム」と呼ばれる新しい機能が実装されます。特定の条件をクリアすると、特別な報酬をアンロックすることができます。内容についてより詳しく知りたい方は、こちらの動画をどうぞ（英語）。

Infamous Skins

Steam上でゲームをすでに所有している場合、9月24日にDefinitive Editionへと自動的にアップグレードされます。DLCキャラクターを購入している場合は、限定スキン「Infamous Skin」をそのキャラクターで使うことができます。「Infamous Skin」の見た目が気に入った、だけどまだ「Rivals of Aether」を所有していないという人は、ぜひ9月24日までに購入してください！ Definitive Editionリリース後にこのスキンを入手する手段はありません。現在、Switch版では「Infamous Skin」は購入できません。

Steam Workshop

そしてSteam版をプレイしているみなさん向けにうれしいニュースです。Steam ワークショップがベータテストを終了し、「Rivals of Aether」の正式コンテンツとして実装されます。またWorkshop Skinという新機能では、キャラクターの見た目だけを変更するベーシックスキンと、見た目と実際のゲームプレイを変更するアドバンススキンが追加されます。現在、Switch版はSteam ワークショップに対応していません。

Definitive Editionの画像一式をダウンロード

「Rivals of Aether」Definitive EditionはSwitchとSteam向けに9月24日より配信を開始します。コミュニティの一員としてサポートし続けてくれたみなさん、本当にありがとうございます。そしてSwitch版から「Rivals of Aether」をプレイし始めるみなさん、私たちのコミュニティにようこそ！

Categories: Announcement, News, Press | Comments: 2

» Category: Announcement