There were so many incredible entries in the Workshop contest that we can't resist gushing about it some more. Join developers Giik, SBS, and Etalus for a casual dev stream right here on Steam (or your choice of the Rivals Twitch[twitch.tv] or YouTube pages) where we highlight more great characters and chat about the contest.

Last year we announced a one-of-a-kind contest where Rivals Workshop creators had the chance for their own character to be officially added to Rivals 2. Creators had six and a half months to design, animate, and code their creations before submitting them to our dev team for a rigorous judging process. Today, on the one year anniversary of the contest, we're finally revealing the winner and 4 runner-ups!

We were incredibly impressed with the over 80 submissions we received featuring creators' completely original characters. We could clearly see the love and hard work that went into them, and want to thank everyone who entered. If you haven’t gotten to play these amazing characters yet, make sure to try them yourself by filtering in Steam Workshop with the “Rivals 2 Contest” tag.


Our official contest winner is La Reina, The Crowd Magnet by Sa-v[x.com] and Onyx[x.com]! This acrobatic grappler grabbed our attention from the get-go, and topped our developer panel in all categories including Gameplay, Visuals, and Character Background. Sa-v and Onyx have taken home the first place prize of $5,000 and as shown in the trailer, we’ve already begun some early work on La Reina in 3D. She won’t be playable any time soon, but we’re looking forward to sharing updates on her as we make progress.

Originally posted by Dan Fornace, Studio Lead:

"La Reina was one of the highest rated characters among our development team after we did our initial judging. What really pushed her over the edge for our team was her undeniable style and her strong roster fit. The original Rivals of Aether doesn’t have a true grappler, which makes sense in a game without a lingering shield or block. But La Reina feels like a grappler cranked to 11. Her playstyle is fun and unique and we are excited to adapt her gameplay and expand her moveset with the new options that Rivals 2 features.” -Dan Fornace, Studio Lead

We can’t stress enough how many amazing entries there were in this competition. Choosing just one winner was a tough job. Here are the next four runner-ups from our judging process. These characters will receive special recognition with an exclusive character icon for each creator/team to give out in Rivals 2.


Yono, by FuZZ_lol and garebear, was one of our favorites because he oozes style and personality. He was one of our top ranked lore characters and we love the webcomic that the team created. We were impressed by the backstory behind the Postmen’s Guild and the stage that the team created for Yono. His roster fit was also very strong as he is an awesome and creative take on the air element.


Bhadra, by PJ and Hemuth, was immediately identified by our team as one of the highest quality entrants. Right when the contest closed, we found ourselves gravitating toward this well-crafted Shiba. While he wears his inspiration on his sleeve, the execution and creativity in converting him to a platform fighter was top notch. We also really liked his elemental fit of Gold as well the wandering samurai lore in his backstory.


Helios, by Goomboo, was our other top ranked lore character. We were blown away by the trailer that Goomboo created. It fit right into the world and we wanted to learn more about Helios and his relationships with the inhabitants of Julesvale. The moveset and elemental fit into fire also earned high points from our team. Like Bhadra, there was clear inspiration, but the moveset felt right at home in a platform fighter. After playing him for even a short period, Helios felt like a character that was always in Rivals.


We can say it. Awatsu, by Selrate, was Dan’s favorite character in the contest while also ranking highly with many of our developers. When it comes to adorable creatures that creatively manipulate their element, Selrate may have outdone Dan himself. The character is so unique in its visual style and the way it moves. The animations and effects are also beautifully executed. When you combine its visuals with the intricate but intuitive bubble system, the character really stands out from the rest.

Thank you to everyone who created characters, supported workshop devs throughout the contest, and even those who simply played some of the entries and interacted with the community’s creations. It’s always amazing to see what passionate people can create, and as game devs ourselves, it’s an honor to see other talented devs make their mark on the world of Aether.

We're back with a bugfix full of bug squashing and a few QoL changes for Hodan. This is a smaller patch leading up to our potential final patch with more balance changes and a Switch update in the next few months!

• Bug Fix: Fixed custom color skins applying to Story Mode due to some skins causing issues in gameplay.
  
• Bug Fix: The Rollback Settings button is now unclickable while readied up.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed various skins displaying a Santa hat for 1 frame when hit.

• Bug Fix: Landing during Neutral Air now gives resources back. This should only affect cases where he lands on a Kragg pillar that breaks while Wrastor still in landing lag.

• Bug Fix: Fixed a replay bug that would show Forsburn losing a stock on the bottom tracker if clone died in a blastzone.

• Bug Fix: Fixed multiple instances of teammate projectiles being deleted in the Down Special plasma field. (Mollo bombs, Pomme field, Orcane bubbles).
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed being able to counter a Mollo bomb that wouldn't hit Clairen normally.

• Bug Fix: Parrying a petal wave over a flower now properly removes the grass around the flower.

Mollo had a lot of bugs related to his bombs still rattling around prior to this patch that we were able to pinpoint thanks to a wide net of community feedback.

• Bug Fix: Bombs hitting an opponent the same moment they are parried will now apply knockback.
  
• Bug Fix: Parrying a bashed bomb now sends it at the Ori that bashed it.
  
• Bug Fix: Landing out of Tumble no longer sets off primed bombs.
  
• Bug Fix: Getting hit by a 0 hitstun move such as Ori Neutral Special no longer detonates primed bombs.
  
• Bug Fix: Kragg hitting a bomb with Forward Special now only gives him the article jump cancel window.
  
• Bug Fix: Hitting a bomb downwards through a platform now always sends it through the platform.
  
• Bug Fix: Bombs clipping into the stage the frame they're thrown no longer teleport to the other side of the stage.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed bashed firecrackers only hitting Mollo once.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed reverse-DI from flashbang only applying to grounded opponents.

• Bug Fix: Fixed the splash hitbox of Charged Down Strong not triggering if the parry landed on the last frame.
  
• Up Strong: The spike hitbox now buries opponents when they hit the ground. (Grounded hitbox still bounces them upwards.).
  A general consensus was that using Hodan up Strong on platforms (on stage) could be a bit detrimental since players could simply tech out. Given the massive size of the move, having the throw bury opponents gives Hodan a chance to follow up on his attack, while not making the move too powerful.
  
• Bug Fix: Players grabbed by Up Strong can no longer walltech before the move throws them.
  
• Down Special: Dodge cancelling now works at any point in hitpause.
  
• Down Special: Slam hitboxes now have hit lockout for the rest of his recovery frames (24 frames).
  
• Down Special: Slam hitboxes no longer make opponents immune to mud waves.
  These changes to Down Special should keep the odd double bury situations from previous patches out of the game, while fixing the side effect of getting hit, then freely moving through mudwaves across the stage.

• Bug Fix: Fixed crystalizing appearing wrong in playtest.
  
• Bug Fix: Crystalizing now must be moving downwards to break off the ground. This fixes a rare case where Kragg could avoid crystalizing by being inside a rock on that frame.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed aerial stall decay not being applied if cancelled in-field.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed being able to use Neutral Special during a parried gem's break animation.
  
• Bug Fix: Neutral Special projectile no longer has hitpause scaling.
  
• Bug Fix: Gem now gets bashed properly.
  
• Bug Fix: Fixed being unable to turn around when cancelling the windup of Down Special.

• Bug Fix: Bombs now bounce off of Vince.

A new buddy is available today in Rivals of Aether: introducing Mawson from Cross Blitz!

Mawson is the beloved chief of the Mawpaws – a cat-like race of creatures that live deep within their island’s mana mines. He’s one of the few Mawpaws who are brave enough to communicate with outsiders, and looks to be adventurous enough to have made it all the way to Aether to be your next battle buddy.

You can unlock Mawson by owning both Rivals and Cross Blitz on Steam.

Cross Blitz is an RPG deckbuilder by our good friends at Tako Boy Studios featuring fast-paced tactical combat with loads of cards to collect and synergies to wield. Make sure to check it out if you're a fan of Creatures of Aether or other deckbuilders, especially while it's on sale for the Deckbuilders Fest.

https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/1619520/Cross_Blitz/

Join Dan and Trevor over on our twitch[twitch.tv] this Thursday at 2pm ET / 1pm CT / 11am PT as they play contest entries and chat about the process behind the scenes for adding a character to the Rivals universe. As always, questions are welcome in the chat.

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At the start of this year, we closed submissions for our Workshop Character Creation Contest, a contest where we asked the community to make their own characters with the winner eventually being officially added to Rivals 2!

Since then, we've been hard at work behind the scenes and posted an update earlier today about when people can expect for a winner to be chosen and more.

Hello to our beautiful Rivals Workshop enjoyers today! We’ve got a small update to announce when we plan to reveal a winner as well as a few other events related to our Workshop Character Contest.

Contest judging is well underway and we’ve combed through almost one hundred characters to make sure the winner and four runner-ups are chosen with care. We plan to choose the winner and get them signed and ready for an announcement on the one year anniversary of the contest – which is July 3rd, 2024. Don’t forget that this character isn’t planned to join the Rivals 2 roster for some time.

On the way to that announcement we’ll keep everyone up to date with a few streams – starting with one this Thursday on March 28th at 2pm ET / 1pm CT / 11am PT. Join Dan and Trevor as they play contest entries and chat about how the process is going behind the scenes so far. As always, questions are welcome in the chat. The stream will take place on the official Rivals twitch[twitch.tv].

We’ll also be highlighting a few characters per month again like we did when submissions were running to showcase entries. There’s so many good submissions that deserve a spotlight, and anyone can play them right now. Make sure to check them out by using the “Rivals 2 Contest” filter on Steam.

Rivals of Aether and all of our cosmetic DLC is on sale for just one more day at 50% off! Don't miss out on the end of the Steam Spring Sale. It's the perfect time to get your friends in for Rivals Workshop, or just pick up the game at a discount if it's something you've had your eye on.

Get an exclusive Rivals of Aether skin when you back the Rivals 2 Kickstarter HERE[obp.gg]. We have some Early Bird Specials, so be sure to back before it’s too late!

[obp.gg]

Today we’re kicking off a competition with one of the coolest prizes we can think of – a chance for your own character to officially join the Aether Universe! We’re inviting the community to create their dream character in our new contest and share it with the world for a chance to be added to Rivals 2.

If you’re new to Rivals or the Rivals Workshop and want to get involved, we’ve got great news because Rivals of Aether is currently on sale for 50% off! You can pick up the game at a discount (or any of our games) during the Steam Summer Sale for the next 2 weeks through 6/29/23 – 7/13/23.

Ever since we added Steam Workshop support, our community has created over 3,000 characters and even more stages and buddies. It’s become such a fan-favorite that Workshop side events are now held at all Rivals Majors. On top of that - Workshop has even become such a core part of Rivals itself that we selected and adapted four of the best community-made characters to add as a free official update[rivalsofaether.com] to the game in 2022. Now we’ve decided to turn our attention to our upcoming sequel with a public competition!

Starting today, 7/3/23, you’ll have until the end of the year to create and publish a brand new character with the chance to get it included in Rivals 2! We want to spur fresh ideas from the community, so we will only be allowing characters created and published after 7/3/23. Submissions are limited to one character per person and can be officially entered using our Google Form[forms.gle] and publishing your character with the “Rivals 2 Contest” Steam Workshop tag[rivalsofaether.com]. First place will receive $5,000 in exchange for rights to the character, while the winner and four runner-ups will receive exclusive cosmetics in Rivals 2.

While we're on the subject of community-made characters, be sure to check out the amazing characters featured above in our trailer: Lukastar, Rykenburn, and Zephrie.


As mentioned above, to enter you will need to create and submit a completely original character[forms.gle] (with the “Rivals 2 Contest” tag[rivalsofaether.com]) during the contest period of 7/3/23 – 12/31/23. This means entrants should not use movesets or sprites from previous works. In addition, any submissions contributed to by a team must be submitted and represented by a single individual that owns the character. Judging will be done by the Aether Studios dev team based on a number of criteria including:

• Gameplay [1-10 points]
  
• Visuals [1-5 points]
  
• Character Background (Element Fit/Lore) [1-5 points]

The top choice will be awarded $5,000 in exchange for character rights and will guarantee the character’s inclusion in Rivals 2 sometime post-launch.

[forms.gle]Participants must be at least 13 years old to participate. For complete contest details and requirements, check out our official Workshop Character Creation Contest rules[aetherstudios.com].


While the competition’s underway we’d love to show off what our community is cooking. Working on something? Use our Highlight Form[forms.gle] as many times as you’d like to submit video of your progress, process, or playtesting of your creation. You might be featured on our social media or game spotlights.

We hope everyone has fun with this competition and is excited as we are to see some awesome new characters make their way to the Rivals Universe. If you have any questions about the contest feel free to ask in the comments below, or on twitter, discord[discord.gg], or any of our other social media.