News

This Summer we introduced a new type of distinction for local events called 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.

After a hard fought battle at Xanadu’s Elemental Rivalries, our first MYM victor stood tall. To immortalize Penguin in Rivals of Aether history we present without further ado – Penguin Absa:

Penguin’s victory is everyone’s victory, and this skin is now available for free on Steam. Download and enjoy it today right here:

Hmmm what’s that taunt about?

Keep your eye on the Steam announcements page to look for more upcoming Make Your Mark events if you want your own chance to get a skin in the game.

Other New Steam Store Skins

Along with Penguin Absa, we’re also releasing 4 additional skins for the first time on the Steam store. These skins were originally made as a way to support community events and have helped fund player travel reserves and prize pools at over 7 tournaments.

Now that their time in compendiums is over, we’ve decided to move them to the Steam store due to popular demand from players looking to spend Steam balance on skins. Arcade Elliana, Shine Zetterburn, Summit Orcane, and Arcade Maypul are now available on the Steam store for $2.99 each:

In addition to these changes, our 3 other skins released during Early Access are going up from $1.99 to $2.99 to standardize skin prices.

Now that players have gotten some game time with our latest character, Shovel Knight, we have a few updates we wanted to squeeze in before our next major event. This includes a new way to spend your Aether coins along with some balance updates. Stay safe during any upcoming Heat Waves and read on for the full notes below.

New Profile Icons and Icon Shopping

You can now shop for profile icons with all those Aether coins you’ve been hoarding! In any online mode, scroll through your icon pages to see purchasable ones designated by a golden lock. These feature non-playable characters you might recognize from story mode and even others you might not be so familiar with from throughout the world of Aether.

Whew this one’s pretty pricey. Who is that guy anyway?

Halloweeen Skins

You might have noticed these snuck in during a hotfix, but if not, our Halloween skins are here to begin their reign of terror for the Halloween season. You can choose these skins in any game mode (including ranked) where these colors will be available until the next season rotation.

Gameplay Changes

• Your Double jump is now restored if interrupted on the very first frame; aka Double Jump Protection: 0 > 1 (was 6 before 1.4.0).
• The last 5 frames of tech options can no longer be cancelled into jumpsquat.
• On hit, the last 5 frames of landing lag can now be cancelled into jumpsquat for all moves, not just moves that have the same landing lag frames as the character’s natural land frames.
• Frozen players will now break free and go into prat fall when the ground under them disappears.
• Bug Fix: Jumpsquat can now be cancelled into Uspecial.

• Forward Special can now interrupt attacks again.
• Wrastor Fspecial now deals no hitpause/hitstun against crouching opponents. It also has a new sound effect on frame 1 to make it more reactable.
• Prat Land time after Neutral Special reduced from 24 > 18. Prat Land time after Up Special remains at 24.

• The Rock will now hit enemies in the direction that it’s moving.
  This fixes the weird reversal issues that could occur when The Rock hits someone after bouncing off of something else.

• Down Air hit-2 hitbox now matches the animation better.
• Combust hitstun scaling decreased from 1.0 > 0.8.

• Forward Air hitbox now matches animation better.
• Forward Special will no longer auto-reverse after reversing a tether to an opponent.

• Forward Smash scaling increased from 0.7 > 0.8.
• Down Smash scaling increased from 0.7 > 0.8.

• Dash attack sweetspot hitpause increased.
• Ori can only cancel dash attack after hitpause is over (adds 2 frames before you can cancel).

• Forward Special will now follow moving platforms.

• Clairen has a new tipper visual effect!

• Forward Tilt projectile now only deals knockback if the opponent is already in hitstun (similar to Ori’s Spirit Flame).
• Multiple Forward Tilt projectiles can now exist at the same time.
• Forward Tilt projectile damage increased from 1 > 2.
• Forward Tilt hit lockout increased from 3 > 4.
• Down Smash scaling increased from 0.85 > 1.0.
• Forward Smash scaling increased from 1.05 > 1.15.
• Forward Smash angle adjusted from 361 to 45.
• When Sylvanos hits an opponent with both hits of his Up Air, the second hit’s hitstun scaling is now 0.85 (down from 1.0).

• Down Special Mine now arms properly on parried enemies.
• Neutral Special now causes parry stun.
• Elliana will now rebuild her mech after breaking free from Maypul’s wrap.
• Elliana will no longer gain invincibility when parrying steam that has already been parried.

• The dirt block created by Up Strong will no longer cancel respawn invincibility when it’s destroyed.

New Characters – Sylvanos and Elliana

Sylvanos, The Heart of the Forest and Elliana, The Aerial Arsenal are now available on Xbox One! These Rivals come as a DLC two pack and can be added to your roster for $4.99.

Sylvanos is our third Rival to represent the earth element while Elliana rounds out our roster as the final air Rival. Both of them are also unique in that they’re our first Rivals who are also villains. Pick them up today on the Microsoft store or try them for free in their tutorials, accessible through the solo menu in game.

Moonwalking

We’ve added even more movement options to Rivals this patch with the advent of moonwalking. This advanced tech is great for microspacing or when you just want to show off.

• Wall tech can now be cancelled by a double jump or airdodge.
• Wall tech invincibility has been increased from 8 frames > 12 frames.
• You can now crouch cancel multihit crouch cancellable moves like Absa upSpecial, Ranno needles, etc.
• You can no longer ASDI up/down while grounded. This was a bug that allowed people to tech grounded spike attacks, which were not supposed to be techable.
• Fixed angle flipper 8 (Absa Dspecial and Ori Charged Flame) to behave as expected when compared to angle flipper 1 (e.g. Zetter Nspecial).
  Previously it calculated the angle based on the bottom of the player’s feet instead of the center of their body, leading to a lower angle in most cases.
• Jab is no longer cancellable into strong attacks. Forsburn could cancel Fstrong into Dstrong, which was unintended and extremely powerful.
• Attacks with the ‘force flinch’ property can now force flinch even if the opponent is in hitstun.
• Successful techs now reset the tech failure window, allowing you to tech two attacks in a row.
• Shortened dash attacks no longer happen when you press dash and attack on the same frame. Instead, a dash attack will shorten if you’re holding down on frame 1 of the attack (an easy way to do this is to do a quarter circle motion from forward to down, then press attack). This makes shortened dash attacks easier to do on purpose and more difficult to do on accident. This change only affects characters that could previously shorten their dash attacks: Zetterburn, Clairen, Orcane, and Sylvanos.
• Hit lockout time is no longer used as the mechanic to make multi-hitbox, single-hit attacks (like Zetterburn fair or Ori bair). It is now only used for moves that shouldn’t be interrupted by things like Orcane bubbles, Kragg rock shards, or Elliana steam. Instead, hitboxes now have a hitbox_group property that prevent hitboxes in the same group from hitting until the attack ends.
• Trading with a move that hits inward will no longer turn you around.
• Fixed a bug that prevented multihit projectiles from being crouch cancelled correctly.
• Added more profile icons.

Character Specific Notes

• Press the dodge button during the first few frames of aerial Dspecial to cancel the move, removing all hitboxes but giving you only 16 landing lag frames instead of 26.
• Uair endlag increased from 8 > 10 on hit and 12 > 15 on whiff.
• Fstrong linking hitbox active frames increased from 3 > 5. This prevents fast characters from running straight through Fstrong.
• Fstrong and Dstrong can now move players vertically during hitpause instead of just horizontally, preventing situations where the first strong hitbox would hit burned opponents, but the final fire-consuming hitbox would miss.
• Strong attacks no longer move opponents in hitstun if they aren’t on fire.
• Can no longer cancel Dspecial if it is parried.

• Jab 2 has two more frames of endlag (still cancellable on the same frame).
  This prevents a nasty 50/50 against lighter characters with jab > jab >dstrong.
• Bair endlag increased from 7 > 9 on hit and 11 > 14 on whiff.
• Fair knockback scaling increased from 1.0 > 1.1.
• Fair hit lockout time increased from 0 > 3 (so bubbles no longer interrupt your kill moves).
• Uair sweetspot hit lockout time increased from 13 > 18.
• Puddle Fstrong startup extended by 3 frames to match regular Fstrong.

• Dspecial now only restores Wrastor’s jumps on hit instead of always.
• Wrastor is now actionable 5 frames later on dash attack in the air (only on whiff).
• Nair is now a 3 hit multihit move. The first two hits behave like Orcane’s dair, while the last hit is the same as Wrastor’s old nair.
• Ustrong sweetspot knockback scaling decreased from 1.45 > 1.35.
• Nspecial hitbox timings have been cleaned up. The active frames per hitbox have been increased from 3 > 7.
  Now the hitboxes appear every 8 frames with only a single frame between active hitboxes instead of being basically random. This makes the moves more consistent, both for Wrastor to use offensively and for the opponent to parry. This also means the very first hitbox at Wrastor’s feet comes out 2 frames faster than before.
• Nspecial final hit damage increased from 1 > 3.
  The hitbox timing cleanup changed the damage from 11 > 9, so the final hit does more to compensate and keep the total damage the same.

• Bair angle changed from 361 > 55.
• Bair startup decreased from 9 > 7.
• Fstrong angle changed from 361 > 45. (changes the angle from 40 to 45 on grounded opponents).
• Aerial Dspecial hit lockout time increased from 0 > 10. This makes it less common for opponent’s knockback to be interrupted by your own rock shards.
• Rockless Nspecial is now B-reversible.
• Nthrow base knockback decreased from 9 > 7. This finally makes Nthrow weaker than Fthrow, for intuitiveness and comboability.
• Rocks are now destroyed as soon as they touch the bottom blastzone, instead of significantly below it.
• If Kragg is interrupted while pulling a rock out of a pillar, it will no longer consume the pillar’s rock resource.

• Forward Special now has double the endlag if it whiffs, but only if it was started on the ground (or within 32px above ground) and was not reversed.
• Uair hit 1 and 2 SDI modifier increased from 1 > 1.2.
  This prevents uair > tether > uair from being guaranteed which had somehow worked its way back into the game.
• Parrying a non-projectile hit will now remove the watcher’s mark.
• Uair hitboxes now match the animation better (still has the same range in all 4 directions).
• Can no longer cancel the end of the tether animation with an Uspecial (tether Uspecial was a guaranteed combo on Etalus).

• Clones will not jump for 10 frames after you release the Special button.
  This change is to make it possible to command super clone to attack offstage while still preventing his jump, since previously he would jump on the frame that you released special.
• Smoke is now destroyed by steam and Elliana’s uTilt.
• Holding the special button will prevent clone from jumping or using Uspecial while offstage.
  This allows Forsburn players to get even more creative and sneaky when spawning clone offstage.
• Ustrong final hit KB decreased from 8 + 1.15 > 8 + 1.1.
• Bair strong hit active frames decreased from 3 > 2.
• Bair weak hit active frames decreased from 16 > 14.
• Bair endlag increased from 6 > 8 on hit and 9 > 12 on whiff.
  The full move duration remains unchanged on hit, so comboing off of bair will be the same as before.
• Smoke is now cleared on death.
• Clone no longer switches AI modes when the joystick is moved to neutral/sideways immediately after inputting Uspecial

• Absa’s Up Special now has 3 frames of extra endlag on whiff.
• Absa is now actionable 3 frames later when cancelling Up Special.
• Down Tilt knockback scaling increased from .3 > .45.
• Dash attack boost speed increased from 6 > 7.
• Absa can now do any number of jabs instead of only an odd number.

• Armored Up Strong final hitbox position changed to match non-armored Up Strong.
• Ustrong shard damage decreased from 6 > 3 (to match Fstrong and Dstrong shards).
• Ice shards now only shoot out in the direction of the strong attack instead of every direction. The number of shards is unchanged, however, so the wave of icicles is more dense.
• Dspecial landing hitbox now comes out on the first frame of landing instead of the third.
• Grabbing a rock with Uair will now move the rock toward the second hitbox just like it does with players.
• Can no longer walljump or fastfall while wrapped with super armor.

• Down Air can now be cancelled with Up Special (at the same time that it can be cancelled by jumping).
• Charged Flame sweetspot knockback scaling decreased from 0.75 > 0.6.
• Bug fix: Ori can no longer issue orders to Sein while teching the ground.
• Jab 2 is now techable. Knockback angle changed from 40 > 60.
• 4 frames added to the endlag of both versions of Ustrong.
• Fstrong is now techable at the ledge again. It may link less reliably in some rare situations.
• Ledge cancelling non-team up Ustrong while Sein is performing an attack will no longer teleport Sein to you.
• Can no longer bash Absa’s cloud after she activates it with Nspecial or Dspecial.
• Spirit flame now only causes hitstun on opponents already in hitstun (or for 30 frames after being hit by a Spirit Flame that caused hitstun).
• Charged flame max hold time decreased from 4 sec > 3 sec.
• Charged flame knockback scaling decreased from .55 > .4.
• Charged flame now has a strong, tiny sweetspot in the center.

• Ftilt frames between the hitboxes decreased from 6 > 4.
• A new small hitbox has been added at the top of Fair that has the same knockback as the front hit but with an angle of 45 instead of 30.
• Fair endlag increased from 14 > 16 on hit and 21 > 24 on whiff.
• Ranno can now hitfall any of the 3 hits of Dair.
• Dair landing lag increased from 4 > 6.
• Nspecial projectile lifetime reduced from 30 > 22.
• Fspecial ground grab box extended by 4px (does not affect grabbing players).
• Fspecial hitbox changed from a rectangle to a pixel-perfect sprite for the tongue tip.
• Fspecial will now prioritize ground over players when colliding with them both on the same frame.
• Uspecial dive kick hitbox split into 2 hitboxes.
• Uspecial rising hitbox now comes out 4 frames later to match the animation.
• Uspecial dive kick can no longer be cancelled if it was parried.
• Dspecial startup shortened by 15 frames.
• Holding Dspecial while a bubble is out now lets you control the bubble as long as you hold special. Tapping Dspecial behaves the same as before.
• New sound effect added when starting Fspecial, making it slightly easier to react to.
• Gravity reduced while channeling bubble movement.

• Nair sourspot 2 and 4 moved 2 pixels inward to make the tippers slightly larger.
• Ftilt, Fair1, and Bair sourspots shrunk by 4-6px inward, making the tippers slightly larger.
  After comparing tipper sizes, these 3 were significantly smaller than most other tippers. This made them a bit too hard to land even when you space them, especially with the sometimes not-so-pixel-perfect hurtboxes that Rivals can have when in non-attack states.
• Ftilt tipper knockback scaling decreased from .65 > .6.
Dash attack now has whifflag.
• Dash attack recovery decreased from 16 > 13 on hit and increased from 16 > 20 on whiff.
• Fair landing lag decreased from 9 > 8.
• Bair landing lag increased from 6 > 8.
• Bair recovery increased from 14 > 15.
• Fstrong active frames divided into a 2 part swing (total active window duration increased from 2 > 4 frames).
  The first 2 frames only hit above her while the last 2 frames hit in front (the same as before but not as far backward). The above part starts 1 frame earlier than the previous version, and the front part starts 1 frame later than the previous version. Dividing it into two parts makes the move feel more like a sword swing.
• All non-tipper Fstrong and Dstrong hitboxes knockback scaling increased by .1.
• Dspecial final hit hitstun modifier increased from .5 > .9.
• Plasma field now destroys Forsburn smoke, Forsburn clone attack, and Etalus ice.
• Projectiles are no longer active in the plasma field for 1 frame.
• Clairen can now counter Elliana’s steam and Utilt.
• Plasma field will now disable Elliana’s Uspecial mech.

今夏は新しいライバルズのイベントやアナウンスがありましたけどまだまだ終わらないですよ！新しいゲストライバル、新しいステージ、アップデートされたアニメーション、これまでのアプデを凌駕する特大パッチに乞うご期待！

ショベルナイトが「Rivals of Aether」に飛び込む！

Yacht Club Games ☓ Dan Fornace LLC！伝説の剣(道具？)、ショベルブレードを華麗に振り回す青い騎士が最後のゲストとして登場します！スチーム版ではすでにショベルナイトとステージ「リンゴマスの池」が使えるようになっています。

いつものように買う前にキャラクターチュートリアルでショベルナイトを無料で試せるのでご利用ください。

新ステージ

シルヴァノスとエリアナのストーリーから選ばれた２つの全く新しいステージが追加されました！彼らのDLCを買えば(もしくは持っていれば)アンロックされます。

イーサーの森の底でバトれ！イーサーモードでは一つの場所に長く立ちすぎると森林に住んでいるものたちがなぜ森底に行かないか理解するだろう…

エリアナが自慢のメカを作り上げた街を訪ねてみよう！ジュールヴェールの市街地で運送中の荷物が積まれる中、台座に乗って相手を倒せ！

[English]

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.