Rivals of Aether (abbreviated as RoA) is an indie platform fighting game. It was developed by Dan Fornace and Flashygoodness and fully released in 2017 on PC and Xbox One. The Definitive Edition was released in 2020 on PC and Nintendo Switch.
Gameplay[]
Rivals of Aether is mainly inspired by the series Super Smash Bros. and features gameplay similar to Melee. It borrows many gameplay elements such as directional attacks, knockback, and wavedashing.
Unlike the Smash Bros. games, Rivals does not have ledges, grabs, or shields. Instead of ledges, Rivals has a special wall jump mechanic that allows characters to use their recovery move twice before landing back on stage. In place of grabs and shields, Rivals has the parry mechanic.
Characters[]
There are currently 18 playable characters in the base roster of Rivals of Aether.
Stages[]
There are currently 15 stages in Rivals of Aether. Some of the stages have unlockable skins that can be earned through the Milestone System.
Modes[]
Tetherball
Online[]
The game uses peer-to-peer rollback netcode for 1v1 online play. Every other online mode currently uses peer-to-peer delay-based netcode.
On Steam, players have the option of playing in Casual, Ranked, or Friendly matches. In Casual matches, players can choose to queue up for 1v1, Workshop 1v1, 2v2, or Free-for-All matches. In Ranked matches, players only face opponents who have a similar rank and all battles are 1v1. In Friendly matches, players can invite Steam Friends to play with and can choose to spectate games.
On Nintendo Switch, players can play in Casual or Ranked matches. Casual matches can be 1v1, 2v2, or Free-for-All, and players can choose to only search for friends. Ranked matches work exactly the same as on PC. Lobbies are a feature only on the Switch version, and allow players to created public or password protected lobbies that other players can join.
When an opponent is found during matchmaking, the connection speed will be shown. A green number indicates a good connection; a yellow or red number indicates a potentially laggy connection. The connection speed number is also displayed in the lower right corner during character selection and actual fighting.
History[]
Rivals of Aether began development in April of 2014. In July 2014 the game was announced along with the first two characters, Zetterburn and Orcane. In August of 2014 it was announced that the game would be released on Xbox One as part of the ID@Xbox Program. In 2015, the game entered early access on Steam. Rivals of Aether's initial release was March 28, 2017 for PC and August 23, 2017 for Xbox One.
After the initial release, several DLC characters were added to the game over the next few years. Ori and Shovel Knight were added as indie guest DLC characters.
In September 2019, Steam Workshop support was added, allowing anyone to create and play with custom characters. Support for custom buddies, stages, and character skins was added later.
On September 24, 2020, Rivals of Aether Definitive Edition was released on both Steam and Nintendo Switch. This bundled all of the DLC characters into the base roster, added better support for Steam Workshop (on the Steam version only), and added more modes.
On February 3, 2022, the Workshop Character Pack was released on Steam (January 31st on Switch). This added 4 workshop characters to the base roster: Mollo, Hodan, Pomme, and Olympia. This also officially added rollback netcode to the Steam version of the game for online 1v1s.