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It’s been a wild summer packed with plenty of Rivals events and announcements, and we don’t plan to stop anytime soon. Strap in and and get ready for the largest patch we’ve had all year with a brand new guest character, fresh stages, updated animations, and lots more!

Shovel Knight Delves into Rivals of Aether

The wielder of the legendary Shovel Blade joins the roster as our final guest in a collaboration between Dan Fornace LLC and Yacht Club Games. Shovel Knight is available now for $4.99 on Steam, which includes Shovel Knight himself and the standalone Troupple Pond stage.

As always, you can try Shovel Knight for free in our character tutorial section.

New Stages

Two completely new stages have been added featuring areas from both Sylvanos’ and Elliana’s story. You can unlock these stages yourself by purchasing (or already owning) the Sylvanos and Elliana character DLC.

Fight in the deadly undergrowth of the Aetherian Forest on “The Forest Floor”. Make sure you keep an eye on the local flora in Aether Mode, or you’ll find out firsthand the reason the Tree Dwellers never venture below.

Visit the Steampunk town where Elliana built her infamous mech. Fight on the city skyline and across an ongoing delivery operation in the bustling city of “Julesvale”.

As our stage list grows we’ll continue to evaluate its competitive impact. In line with that goal, we’ve also added an additional stage ban this patch (upping the bans to three) along with these exciting new locales.

Game Engine Update

We’ve been hard at work on a game engine upgrade all summer, and are pleased to announce that GameMaker Studio 2 is back. Once again, this should provide immediate improvements to help gameplay run smoother for most players, as well as set us up for future upgrades and additional platforms.

If you have trouble launching the game, controller problems, or any other issues on the newest patch – please run DXDiag and send us some information about your PC by using the “Save All Information” button. To run DXDiag simply type ‘DXDiag’ into your start bar.

Other General Changes

• Moonwalk duration increased from 18 to 24.
• Moonwalking is locked out for the first 2 frames of initial dash (makes keyboard/dpad moonwalking equal to joystick moonwalking).
• Double jumps are no longer restored when hit within 6 frames of double jumping.
• Reflecting projectiles doubles their base hitpause.
• Being put into the flinch state will now restore your airdodge.
• Bouncing off the ground after missing a tech will no longer restore your double jump.
• You can now parry during respawn invincibility, but you become vulnerable when doing so.
• Kill move shockwaves have been replaced with a new effect.
  If the move will kill with no DI or inward DI (ignoring drift and obstacles) then you will get the standard burst effect. If the move is a guaranteed kill (ignoring ledge tech, but taking drift and obstacles into account) then you will get a 20 frame burst effect with a special background that covers the entire screen.

Character Specific Changes

• Forward tilt hit 1 now pulls enemies inward during hitpause, allowing hit 2 to connect more consistently.
• Burn is now removed on parry.
• Bug fix: Forward Strong/Down Strong hit 1 now moves enemies during hitpause when connecting with the last frame of the hitbox.

• Down Strong endlag increased from 19 to 21 (29 > 32 on whiff).
• If Nair is held, it now bounces off the ground if you land while the hitbox is active.
• Forward Air and Down Special bubbles spawn/move in preset patterns instead of randomly.

• Down Air semi-spike hitbox angle flipper removed.
• Forward Special no longer interrupts attacks.
• Forward Tilt hitboxes adjusted in size and position. These first two hitboxes now additionally pull inward to make connecting the third hit more reliable.
• Neutral Special disjoint removed.
• Neutral Special hit lockout no longer applies to the final hitboxes of the move. This fixes a bug where they would miss due to the last multihit hitboxes hitting late.
• Down Strong will now bounce if connecting on the frame before landing.
• Down Special changed into a two-hit attack (to prevent it from heavily winning trades).
• Up Special sweetspot angle flipper removed.
• Prat fall air acceleration multiplier increased from 0.25 to 0.5.

• Forward Air landing lag increased from 6 to 8 (9 > 12 on whiff).
• Angle flipper removed on rockless Neutral Special.

• Removed invincibility from clone creation.
• Shortly after starting Forward Special, it will now go on a cooldown. This makes it so you can’t Forward Special again immediately if it’s interrupted.
• Forsburn no longer retains smoke charges when super clone dies from the bottom blastzone.
• Parrying clone explosion now allows you to cancel parry’s endlag, like other projectiles.
• Forsburn can now use regular Down Special immediately after the clone explodes.
• Forward Air decreased in size to match animation better.
• Up Air active frames decreased from 16 to 10. Endlag added so that it’s the same on hit, but has more whifflag.
• Getting interrupted while performing Forward Special or Neutral Special while fully charged now causes you to lose all smoke charges.

• Forward Special and Neutral Special Cloud Pop will no longer hit Absa if parried near her.
• Fixed a bug that made Up Tilt 1 frame faster on hit than it should be. Increased from 8 on hit, 14 on whiff to 9 on hit, 14 on whiff.

• Forward Special hitbox size increased to make hitting with and parrying this move more consistent.
• Neutral Special now gains armor 1 frame earlier so that trading with the move doesn’t stop it from getting armor.
• Down Special is now walljump-cancellable when done near a wall.
• Enemies can no longer be frozen during the respawn state (fixes a bug that turned enemies invisible).

• Hitpause removed from Sein taps when they do no knockback.
• Bashing rock on the frame it hits the ground should no longer crash the game.
• Sein’s Team-up Down Strong hitboxes increased in size inward to stop the move from whiffing opponents in the center.
• Team-up Forward Strong back hitbox now carries opponents into the front hitboxes.
• If a projectile is destroyed while being bashed, Ori will now be launched upward instead of going into special fall.
• Charged Flame will no longer hit Ori when parried near them.

• Neutral Special endlag scales from 18 to 12 based on how many needles were thrown. Endlag was previously 12 for aerial needle and 18 for grounded needle.
• Getting hit during Neutral Special now causes Ranno to lose all needle charges.

• Forward Tilt endlag increased from 12 to 15 (18 > 23 on whiff).
• Dash Attack endlag increased from 13 to 16 (20 > 24 on whiff).
• Down Special will no longer create a plasma field if the counter attack is parried.

• Tail removed from hurtboxes (except during the active frames of Forward Tilt).
• Solo Up Air2 base knockback decreased from 9 to 8.
• Forward Tilt startup increased from 5 to 7.
• Forward Tilt projectile now comes out 2 frames later so that trading with Forward Tilt will always prevent the projectile from spawning.
• Up Tilt startup decreased from 8 to 6.
• The first hit of Down Tilt (both hitboxes) now has 4 extra frames of hitpause for the opponent, making it link reliably in most cases.
• Down Special will stop spreading if Sylvanos is hit.
• Holding taunt while emerging from Up Special now cancels Up Special into a taunt.
• Sylvanos no longer creates grass while rolling or tech rolling.
• Grass on cooldown will now be removed on death.
• Down Special will no longer hit Sylvanos when parried near him.
• Bug fix: Forward Tilt projectile hitbox height increased to match the visual.

• Once per airtime, hovering in the opposite direction of your horizontal momentum will give you a boost in the new direction (the same boost other characters get when they double jump). Going into hitstun resets this ability.
• Uncharged Forward Special knockback increased from [6 BKB .1 Scaling] to [7 BKB .2 Scaling].
• Uncharged Forward Special cooldown increased from 0 to 20.
• Charged Forward Special knockback scaling increased from .9 to 1.0.
• Charged Forward Special hitpause increased.
• Up Special will no longer hurt Elliana when parried near her.
• Elliana’s mech now moves with moving platforms when left behind with Up Special.
• Down Special’s mine now takes 100 frames to become active when stuck to a player, unless they’re in parry stun.
• Up Special’s mech now only explodes when it’s overheated.
  When deployed, it will automatically build up heat. This change adds 30 frames of startup time if you have 0 heat built up, while keeping the startup the same if you’re overheated.

The competitive Rivals community has pushed the game further than we’ve ever imagined. Numerous players have taken each of our characters to do incredible things in the name of victory. However, since the earliest days of the Rivals Championship Series, one name has stood above the rest: FullStream.

Not only is FullStream the most dominant player in the game to date, he’s won stacked events with multiple characters. As we approach his next tournament, Shine 2018, he took some time to speak with us about his career thus far, his acquisition by preeminent fighting game organization Panda Global, and his goals for the future.

Can you tell us a bit about your competitive gaming experience before Rivals?

Rivals has been my first competitive gaming experience in every aspect! It fit in well with my love of spectating the competitive Smash Bros scenes, though.

How did you discover Rivals, and what made you want to compete at the highest level in the game?

My brother introduced me to the game after he found out about it from a video by Gbay99. I had no plans to compete at the highest level until I found out there were online tournaments and I entered the first time. At first I was just playing because it was a fun new game, but once I realized that it clicked for me on another level, I started to commit to it in another way.

What does it mean to you to be the game’s first RCS champion?

At the time it was very important to me. I dedicated a lot of time to the game and improving, and one of the most satisfying feelings is knowing that you put your all into something only to see it pay off. Looking back now I think it really paved the way for how I would approach the game and my plans for the future immensely.

Can you share a bit about the process of getting signed by Panda Global? How has your experience playing on such a well-regarded team been thus far?

Ah man, that was a crazy time. I had just become a free agent after the transition from Fly Society (who gave me an amazing initial experience into the esports industry) to Edax, and that gave me a lot of time to think about where I was and where I wanted to go. Once I was a free agent I had several teams contact and negotiate with me, but the only one I ever reached out to was Panda Global.

As one of my favorite teams, in terms of personalities, talent, and care for their players, I knew that I would love being part of that family and very seriously would be a dream team. I got help from my uncle in terms of drafting up an email to contact them, Dan was very open about me being a free agent at the time and basically helped as a “recommendation” in that regards, George (Etalus) and Dan also helped me gather some Rivals statistics to share with them, and there were people already on PG that vouched for me as well.

It was all really eye-opening and incredible to see people help me achieve a high-reaching goal. Pretty soon after I contacted them I got on the phone with Alan [CEO of Panda Global], and the next thing I knew I was a Panda. The process didn’t take long once I contacted them, but I was so anxious that it seemed like it took months. That was a lot of explanation about the process, so I’ll keep it short and say that I couldn’t be happier being a Panda. They’ve supported me in every way possible and everyone cares about everyone here—it still feels so surreal.

At the start of your competitive career you were regarded as the premier Wrastor player, and we saw you focus on Ori following her release, but more recently you’ve chosen to play characters themed after events (Etalus at Frostbite, Ranno at Smash’N’Splash). What lead to this somewhat more casual approach to character selection?

There were so many factors that contributed to switching off Wrastor. Although he was still fun to play, I realized that I was having more fun with some other characters, and that combined with my want to show people that I could be the best without Wrastor highly contributed to that decision. If anything, the challenge itself added to how much fun it sounded!

Another reason was that I wanted to show people that any character could perform well and win big tournaments. Winning with Zetterburn, Etalus, Ori, getting 2nd with Ranno, and still being ranked 1st for season 2 makes me really satisfied with how it has gone in the year after dropping Wrastor. On top of that I wanted to grow as an overall player, not just as a Wrastor player. I believed that the best way I could improve my fundamentals and mentality as a player was to put myself in major tournaments and just remove Wrastor entirely from my options.

Like you said, this made my approach to character selection more casual since I wasn’t sticking with the character that I thought would give me the best chance to win, but in my head I was just doing whatever I had the most fun with and what I thought would have the most effect in the long run.

You’ve been fairly public in stating that you’ve taken a bit of a break from Rivals this Summer. What are your expectations going into your “comeback” event at Shine?

Yeah, since I’ve been in Boston all summer for this internship (which has been going great!) I haven’t had any strong desire to play games, honestly, so I haven’t touched Rivals at all. I’ve been really focused on doing my best here and I’ve only had WiFi to my disposal so even if I wanted to practice it would feel lackluster anyway. I don’t really have any expectations going into Shine. As of now I don’t even know who I’m going to play as!

Having achieved the title of “best in the game” and multiple high profile tournament wins, what are your goals as a Rivals of Aether competitor going forward?

In terms of my Rivals career the “goal” of winning/placing well with many characters is still there. I’m definitely not trying to prove myself to others anymore since I feel that was exceeded a while ago. My highest priority is improving and having fun with that challenge, and the success I’ve had makes me want to see how far I can go in other platform fighters as well!

A huge thank you to FullStream for sharing his time with us. Give him a follow on Twitter and catch him in action at Shine 2018, August 25th on twitch.tv/BigBlueGG starting at 6PM ET / 5PM CT / 3PM PT.

It’s true! Everyone’s favorite spade-swinging protagonist will be joining the Rivals cast this September! We could not be more excited to bring Shovel Knight to the game, and have been working like crazy to ensure that he not only lives up to the hype, but is true to the character you know and love.

In fact, we want to do something we’ve never done before, and take you on a little behind the scenes journey into the process of bringing Shovel Knight to life as a Rivals character. Rather than just describe the process, we want you to hear directly from the folks who made this all possible. So, we asked some of our awesome team to share their own experience in developing our latest guest character.

In this article, you’ll hear from:

Dan Fornace – Creator, Director, Designer
Trevor Youngblood – Programmer, Designer
Ellian – Pixel Artist, Animator
Marc Knelsen – Illustrator, Concept Artist

Why Shovel Knight?

The answer here is, of course, “because he’s awesome!” However, Dan had a bit more insight on what makes the character an ideal choice as a guest character. To him, there were three main draws to Shovel Knight as a playable fighter:

1. “His abilities are perfectly set up to be in a platform fighter considering he has a wide array of tools in his own platforming adventure.”
2. “The global appeal of Shovel Knight is off the charts. He is likely the most recognizable Indie Game character in the last 10 years and we wanted to create a moveset that fans have been asking for.”
3. “The development team at Yacht Club Games is awesome. After meeting them at a few events during Rivals of Aether’s development, I knew I wanted to collaborate with them somehow and a character is the ultimate collaboration.”

Of course, once the team chose to make Shovel Knight playable in Rivals, they had to actually, y’know, make him.

Settling on the Shop Design

Making a guest character is a collaborative process. Since the team is borrowing a pre-existing character from a popular franchise, Shovel Knight’s original dev team needs to make sure that the soul of the character remains intact when translating him into a brand new genre.

Trevor said, “Shovel Knight’s shop mechanic came around after we tried two other designs first, and I think it’s by far the most interesting of the three.” That iterative process was important, because the team needed to find a way to make Shovel Knight fit within Rivals’ unique gameplay while still making fans of his original game feel as though they were playing the same character.

Dan explained that this was particularly difficult with Shovel Knight because he is essentially the “Mario” of his series. “He is the balanced, traditional character that balances against the rest of the Shovel Knight cast. That would be great if we were doing a roster of indie game characters where Shovel Knight could be one of the main mascots and have a traditional moveset. But because we wanted a character that stood out from the rest of the Rivals with a new mechanic, we had to come up with ideas that gave him a unique style while also pulling from Shovel Knight for inspiration”

This is where the Shop design came in. It retains the soul of Shovel Knight’s progression and access to a wide array of tools, while making him a completely unique character within the Rivals roster. Of course, Rivals is still a fighting game, and some items that are wonderful in a platformer could have been problematic when ported to a platform fighter.

“A lot of Shovel Knight’s relics are projectiles,” said Trevor, “which didn’t really fit our vision of him, since we didn’t want another projectile-focused zoner. The task became a lot easier when we started adding Custom Knight’s relics to his moveset. Some relics, however, would be extremely busted if we kept their original functionality, like the War Horn or the Phase Locket, so we took some liberties and tweaked their properties to fit Rivals better.”

Pixel to Pixel Translation

While the character design team is busy playing with all of Shovel Knight’s moves, the art team has its own unique challenges. Someone unfamiliar with Rival’s art direction may think that Shovel Knight would be a simple character to translate to Rivals. After all, they’re both pixel art games!

Indeed, translating an existing character does speed up the concept process. The designers and artists can more easily communicate about how each move should look, because they have plenty of direct reference material from which to pull. However, Shovel Knight’s particular aesthetic presented the team with a new, but familiar challenge.

Ellian said, “it’s the fact that he has armor that was the biggest challenge. As for Elliana, in pixel art it’s really hard to animate “non-organic” elements while retaining the smooth animation style that characterizes Rivals. I just didn’t want it to feel like those old retro games, where it’s just different layered parts that moves independently. But I think we managed to avoid that without losing our style. The coolest part (and the hardest!) was being able to add Shield Knight as a summon parry. It might be the animation we spent the most time on, because we wanted her to be perfect!”

He’s So Cool!

Throughout their interviews, the team could barely contain their excitement for Shovel Knight. So, we decided to just let them gush about their work for a bit.

Dan: I think the coolest aspect is probably the simplest. His Down Air is his Shovel Drop and that move just opens up so much more of his gameplay. Whether its bouncing off projectiles or using it with the Dynamo Mail to trigger Aerial Strong attacks, there is so much you can do with Shovel Drop in both Shovel Knight and Rivals of Aether.

Trevor: I was impressed by how many different references we were able to fit in. Almost every single move is pulled from something in Shovel Knight’s game (down tilt is the only one that isn’t a reference to anything). Also Shovel Drop is just an incredibly fun move that I’m glad we could port almost directly from Shovel Knight.

Ellian: My favorite aspect of doing Shovel Knight for Rivals is how DOPE it was to work on such an iconic character. I get to make my own take on it! That’s wild! Yacht Club’s main feedback was “just make sure it fits Rivals, that’s the most important”, and having such freedom was great.

Marc: I think the only thing I can say, on my side, is that it’s been really fun to draw him “interacting” with the other Rivals characters, getting to explore reaction from both him and the other characters. And that obviously I feel honored to be involved in any way with such an iconic character, being someone who played Shovel Knight as soon as it came out on 3DS years ago and really enjoying the game.

We cannot wait for you to get your hands on Shovel Knight. To stay up to date on the latest news, make sure to join our Discord and follow us on Twitter. While you’re there, let us know what about Shovel Knight has you most excited!

Shovel Knight is joining the Rivals of Aether roster this fall! In a collaboration between Dan Fornace LLC and Yacht Club Games, Shovel Knight has been adapted to compete against the other Rivals. Shovel Knight will be available in September on Steam as a $4.99 DLC addition. It comes with the playable character Shovel Knight as well as the Troupple Pond stage from his game.

Shovel Knight comes with a huge array of tools from his game and puts them all to use in Rivals of Aether. His attacks knock gems out of his opponents which he can collect to increase his treasure. By taunting, Shovel Knight can summon Chester and spend his treasure on upgrades. This allows players to customize each fight to their needs and experience even more of Shovel Knight’s abilities.

We are incredibly excited to bring such a well-known and beloved character to Rivals of Aether. We are even more excited about the unique playstyle that he brings to the table. Many of his attacks seem simple on first glance but have intricacies in how you can use them, similar to his abilities in his own game. Shovel Knight’s signature Shovel Drop is a big part of his game plan in Rivals of Aether and sets up for his combos.

While Shovel Knight is the last planned character addition to Rivals of Aether, the road does not end here. The team is gearing up for a Definitive Release in early 2019. This will come with all the characters, more online features, and Abyss Mode customizations for every character. We are very excited to be bringing the Definitive Edition to PC in 2019 and plan on bringing it to more platforms as well. Keep your eyes here to see where else you’ll be able to grab Rivals of Aether in 2019!

Download an Image Presskit for Shovel Knight here

Thank you for checking out Rivals of Aether. Let’s get Shoveling!

Ever since we added custom colors players have been using them to make their characters their own. These days some have even become so well known that you can recognize a player just by looking at their colors. Well now for the first time ever, you have the chance to immortalize your style too. Introducing the Make Your Mark series.

Events with this banner award a prize like no other – a chance for the first place finisher to create their own skin with the developers, custom taunt and all. These unique skins will be available for free to all players on Steam so you can make your mark and spread your name.

We’re excited to announce that the first event with the Make Your Mark banner will be Elemental Rivalries – Xanadu’s first regional event focused on Rivals of Aether. Make sure you sign up today for a chance at the title: