September 11 - 13 Weekend Events Make sure to tune in for two star-studded Rivals 2 Championship Series events taking place this weekend - one in the United Sates and one in France! United States: Riptide 2026 This fan-favorite 3-day tournament and convention held at the Kalahari
September 11 - 13 Weekend Events
Make sure to tune in for two star-studded Rivals 2 Championship Series events taking place this weekend - one in the United Sates and one in France!
United States:
Riptide 2026
This fan-favorite 3-day tournament and convention held at the Kalahari Resort features:
World-renowned competitors like CakeAssault, Bbatts, Sandstorm, Rongunshu, Sophilo, Beastly, Yoda Cage, darai, Mang0, Mr. Nice Guy, CheesyPotato, Gekkingga and many more!
Beautiful production from the Midwest's finest broadcasters and an indoor waterpark!
Tune in all 3 days to watch Rivals 1 Singles, Rivals II Doubles, and of course the main Rivals II Singles event with Top 8 ending on Sunday. Check out the full schedule below with streams on VGBootCamp3 on Friday and Saturday, and VGBootCamp on Sunday for the Top 8.
Ultimate Fighting Arena is the biggest European festival dedicated to fighting games. Rivals returns as a community event with one of the largest EU event brackets of the year featuring top players like Dia, Mr. R, Neylax, Genarog, Forskeren, Nibodax, Saols, DonCascone, and more!
Tune in Saturday afternoon to watch the top cut French broadcast on tpk_live, or the English broadcast on CollisionSeriesTV. Check the schedule below for your timezone:
UFA will also have twitch drops available during their stream. You can pick up the UFA Slam Dunk Ranno palette by tuning in.
We hope you’ve been enjoying our latest Rival, Gouie , that dropped just last month in August. With September arriving, we’re here with our Fall 2026 update to unveil our next event, a new Rivals 1 Throwback mode, plus a few gameplay and other updates. Check out the full patch no
We hope you’ve been enjoying our latest Rival, Gouie, that dropped just last month in August. With September arriving, we’re here with our Fall 2026 update to unveil our next event, a new Rivals 1 Throwback mode, plus a few gameplay and other updates. Check out the full patch notes below:
Lock in, pilots. Mecha Madness returns as our second mega-event with a massive 3 month event track. Starting today, pick up the new Mecha Bundle featuring Mecha Zetterburn, Ranno, and Gouie.
Players equipping any of the new event skins, or any of the following skins will receive 20% Bonus XP on the event track: Mecha Clairen, Mecha Wrastor, Mecha Kragg, Mecha Etalus, Mecha Absa, Dark Future Loxodont, Ranger Clairen, Ranger Fleet, and Cyber Zetterburn
The Mecha Madness GX event track is loaded with tons of free cosmetics as usual. You can unlock Cyber Forsburn and Cyber Clairen skins, the Mecha GX platform, the Missilesplosion death effect, the “Target Neutralized” critical hit effect, and even more like…
Event Skins: Cyber Forsburn, Cyber Clairen
Event Palettes: Purple Cyber Forsburn, White Mecha Wrastor, Purple Cyber Clairen, White Mecha Kragg Palette, White Mecha Etalus, White Mecha Clairen, White Mecha Absa
Event Emote: Mecha Zetterburn Emote
Event Platform: Mecha GX Platform
Event DFX: Missilesplosion
Event CHFX: Target Neutralized
Event Icons: Cyber Forsburn, Cyber Clairen, GX Logo, Brain Tank
Prefix Titles: Autonomous, Giga, Mechanized
Suffix Titles: Pilot, .exe, Bot
Both Titles: Mecha
Nameplate: Mecha GX Nameplate
Currency: 600 Aether Bucks and 16,500+ Coins
View all of the items in detail right in the Events tab in the store menu.
Rivals 1 Throwback Mode
Last month we added gameplay modifiers that you could mix and match to play your way, but only in local modes or lobbies. Today we're excited to introduce a way to play with modifiers in online matchmaking with our new Rivals 1 Throwback mode! This mode features a new Rivals 1 style camera as well as other modifiers combined to play like Rivals 1.
You can join the new queue from the Casual menu in the online modes. This new rotating queue will last for 1 month and replaces the casual item mode queue.
New Ranked Season - Fall 2026
The new in-game ranked season starts today! The Gouie Ranked skin and corresponding jeweled items have also been added to the medal shop.
New Shop Items
Icons
Platygust
Shiverscale
Buzzridge
Mudmub
Flarekat
Sidgar
Galespur
Avatar Whitefish
Avatar Votick
Avatar Skyfoal
Avatar Scarabie
Avatar Cai
Avatar Swiftwing
Emotes
Blizzape Cheer
Good Set (Available to everyone as a new additional default!)
Skins
Cool Blue Mecha Absa
Titles
Both
Alpha
Ultimate
Pride
Jinx
Team
Hero
Sylvanos (Available to everyone as a new additional default!)
Hodan (Available to everyone as a new additional default!)
Pomme (Available to everyone as a new additional default!)
Mollo (Available to everyone as a new additional default!)
Elliana (Available to everyone as a new additional default!)
Prefix
Waiting for
Dangerous
Reckless
Royal
Goated
Hidden
Stinky
Salty
Suffix
Geek
Inventor
Troublemaker
Beast
GOAT
Legend
Gameplay Updates
Audio: We updated the processing on all mech skins VO to enhance consistency and clarity. The new mech skins also came with this update straight out of the factory!
New gameplay modifier: Jump Cancel Landing Lag
When enabled, this allows you to cancel the last 4 frames of your landing lag with a jump if your aerial hit something. It also allows you to instantly cancel the normal Land state with a jump.
New Setting Added: Stage Outlines
This setting was added to improve readability with the new Rivals 1 camera modifier and has 3 values: (Off, R1Camera Only (default)), Always (R1 Camera and R2 Camera).
Stage outlines Off (left) vs On (right) with R1 Camera.
Drift DI Enabled gameplay modifier replaced with Drift DI Setting, with values of: Off, Very Weak, Weak, Medium, Strong, and Very Strong. The previous Drift DI value was the new Medium setting.
Side blastzones will now be moved inward based on the Drift DI setting.
Since Drift DI dramatically improves horizontal survivability, we're bringing the side blastzones in to make horizontal KOs more viable. The distance they will be moved depends on the strength of the Drift DI setting.
Attempting and failing to catch an item by pressing the grab button while your Air Grab Setting is set to None will now prevent you from trying again for 30 frames.
Bug Fix: Aerials with hitfall hitstun multipliers will now also apply them on subsequent hits after the initial hitfall.
This allows it to work with quick multihits, like Gouie Down Air.
Bug Fix: Spiking an opponent at very specific percents while they're grabbed by another player will no longer leave that player in the grab state.
Bug Fix: The Untechable VFX will no longer appear when hit by a techable attack after previously being hit by an untechable attack.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that prevented drift DI multipliers from applying correctly.
This bug allowed players to drift out of Loxodont Forward Throw's initial toss.
Bug Fix: Fixed hang that could occur in training-in-queue if the match found triggered an Accept Region popup.
Bug Fix: Fixed replay screen stock icons not showing up if you hadn't played as that character yet in your current session.
Known 1.7.1 Patch Issues:
Mecha Zetterburn VO volume is lower than intended. We'll update this in a hotfix ASAP.
Ranno, Zetterburn, and Wrastor have been with us since the early days, but the sounds in their kit are starting to show their age. We're beginning in this patch to modernize our veteran trio's soundscapes, starting with everyone's favorite poisonous pacifist. This round is all about reducing sound re-use and adding minor quality-of-life details. We'll be back to give his hit sounds the love they deserve in a later patch. Ranno's audio changes this patch include:
Added a new dedicated sound effect for super jump.
Added new audio cues for when an enemy is trapped in the bubble, when the bubble pops, and during the poison stack countdown.
Replaced the active SFX and optimized the implementation of the charge-up sound for Neutral Special.
Up Special has new sounds for all interactions.
Taunt 2 now has a new sound effect.
Bug Fix: After using Empowered Special Pummel, Clone can no longer cancel its throw into a Forward Special clone toss.
Bug Fix: Empowered Special Pummel will no longer immediately ledge cancel when used near a ledge while facing left.
Bug Fix: Gem Field VFX will disappear properly when destroyed by Gouie Neutral Special.
Bug Fix: Starting Up Special, Up Strong, or Forward Strong immediately after Special Pummel 3 will no longer teleport the launched opponent back to La Reina.
Bug Fix: Parrying boomerang on its first active frame will no longer freeze it in place.
Bug Fix: Inhaling Wrastor's slipstream tornado will now put the slipstream on cooldown.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that could cause any article to get attached to Gouie after Neutral Special was interrupted.
Forward Special level 1 now has another hitbox in the front.
This extends its range significantly, making it better as an approach tool.
Bug Fix: Forward Special 2 no longer clamps his speed when inputting an invalid attack (such as Down Special or Taunt).
Bug Fix: Gouie can now do reverse tilts when tilt boosting jab 3 after hitting jab 1 or jab 2.
Up Tilt's tail is now invulnerable until the first active frame instead of 2 frames before.
Big Gouie Forward Air now has a hitbox on the right foot too.
Back Air's tail is now invulnerable until the first active frame instead of 1 frame before.
Up Air's tail is now invulnerable until the first active frame instead of 1 frame before.
Down Air grounded hit hitstun multiplier: x0.8 > x1.0
Down Air grounded hit hitfall hitstun multiplier: x1.0 > x0.8
Now Down Air will be much better against grounded opponents when not hitfalling it.
Dash Attack's left arm is now intangible during the startup and first active window.
This removes the negative disjoint from the attack.
Small Gouie Back Throw maximum falling frames: 13 > 11
This makes it release enemies higher when leaping over the ledge. Big Gouie still releases low, however, giving more reward for going big mode.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that caused the mire to whiff against opponents if Gouie was eating an item.
Bug Fix: Auto Shorthop Aerial setting now functions with the right stick. Bug Fix: CPUs that go into ledge parry stun will no longer count as a failed edgeguard in the Edgeguard trial. Hitstun Gravity: 0.85 > 1.1 Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 23.8 > 22.6 (default) This change was
Bug Fix: Auto Shorthop Aerial setting now functions with the right stick.
Bug Fix: CPUs that go into ledge parry stun will no longer count as a failed edgeguard in the Edgeguard trial.
Hitstun Gravity: 0.85 > 1.1
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 23.8 > 22.6 (default)
This change was actually doing the opposite of what it intended: making Wrastor harder to combo at low percents and making him die (very slightly) earlier at mid percents. He was dying a little later at very high percents (which is what the change was originally based on) but these other side effects are not worth that miniscule benefit, so we're reverting both values.
Reverted the puddle despawn timer.
This change was too punishing for low level Orcane players and made picking up this already difficult-to-grasp character even more difficult. Orcane leaving his puddle on the other side of the stage to get free recoveries will still be addressed in a future patch, with the possibility of the puddle timer returning along with other changes to make it more directly targeted at the problem scenario.
Hitstun Gravity: 1.85 > 1.6
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 32 > 33.07 (default)
With the previous values, Olympia would fall farther when spiked at lower percents and rise higher when launched upward at high percents, which wasn't the intent of the change, so we're just reverting both values.
Rivals 2 is on sale for 50% off from 8/4 - 8/18 to celebrate Gouie’s launch! Tell your friends, or get a great price on a gift for them for the next two weeks via Steam gifting. As always, all of our game updates are FREE, including new characters. Check out what went into the la
Rivals 2 is on sale for 50% off from 8/4 - 8/18 to celebrate Gouie’s launch! Tell your friends, or get a great price on a gift for them for the next two weeks via Steam gifting.
As always, all of our game updates are FREE, including new characters. Check out what went into the latest update with Gouie in our patchnotes here.
Bug Fix: Jump cancel grab will no longer ledge cancel on frame 1 if your Air Grab Setting is set to None. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that caused Tap Walljump users to automatically walljump when falling against a wall with no other inputs. Bug Fix: Auto Shorthop Aerial setting will now
Bug Fix: Jump cancel grab will no longer ledge cancel on frame 1 if your Air Grab Setting is set to None.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that caused Tap Walljump users to automatically walljump when falling against a wall with no other inputs.
Bug Fix: Auto Shorthop Aerial setting will now shorthop when Attack/Strong are pressed instead of just when they're held down.
Bug Fix: Fixed a lighting issue on Julesvale that made the platforms appear darker than intended.
Wrap visuals will now scale based on the character they wrapped.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that would grant his Slime Time achievement when landing a single Down Air against an armored opponent.
Bug Fix: Neutral Special can now suck up Maypul's seed, both when thrown normally and as an item.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where articles with an active hitbox could trade with Neutral Special's inhale, canceling the attack while getting stuck in the sucked-up state. Now Gouie will eat the article without getting hit.
Bug Fix: Fixed a visual bug with Big Gouie's Forward Special.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that prevented tap jump from fullhopping. Added Pink Gouie to the shop. His tail tip hurtbox is now ungrabbable during his attacks that make it vulnerable (Down Tilt, Back Air, and Grabs.) Bug Fix: Empowered Special Pummel will now destroy existing clones whe
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that prevented tap jump from fullhopping.
Added Pink Gouie to the shop.
His tail tip hurtbox is now ungrabbable during his attacks that make it vulnerable (Down Tilt, Back Air, and Grabs.)
Bug Fix: Empowered Special Pummel will now destroy existing clones when creating a new one.
Bug Fix: Fixed clone command inputs when using Parry, AirParry, and AirGrab inputs while your joystick is neutral.
Big Up Throw now uses the Heavy hit sound effect instead of the Medium one when landing.
To keep the good time summer vibes rolling, all of our Pool Party Bundles are now 20% off for a limited time! Look for the sale tag on these popular bundles in the Featured tab of the in-game shop: Pool Party 2025 Bundle (The OG) Pool Party Forsburn Bundle Pool Party Splashback 2
To keep the good time summer vibes rolling, all of our Pool Party Bundles are now 20% off for a limited time! Look for the sale tag on these popular bundles in the Featured tab of the in-game shop:
IT'S BIG UPDATE DAY! We've got a new Rival, custom Gameplay Modifiers (so you can play YOUR way), multiple new sales and bundles, matchmaking improvements, the ability to queue Doubles and FFA with 2 local players, plus a ton of gameplay and balance updates. Read on for all of th
IT'S BIG UPDATE DAY! We've got a new Rival, custom Gameplay Modifiers (so you can play YOUR way), multiple new sales and bundles, matchmaking improvements, the ability to queue Doubles and FFA with 2 local players, plus a ton of gameplay and balance updates. Read on for all of the details:
New Rival - Gouie
Gouie, The Lost Mireling, joins the roster as our 7th new Rival. Despite his tragic backstory, this little goo guy is still having fun, and is ready to spread some mischief with you and your friends.
Gouie has multiple abilities that make him great for beginners like extra jumps, a super armored down special, plus tons of air control from being a floaty puffball. He also has the unique ability to go from the lightest character in the game to one of the heaviest, so you can play him with multiple styles. Get ready to throw goobers, sling slime, and be just a little evil with our newest Rival.
Gouie is available right now for FREE with all of the standard content included in a new Rival release. This includes Gouie’s Arcade Mode, Target Test, progression unlocks, achievements, and a slew of fun cosmetics our new gooey lad.
If you're looking for some tips and tricks for Gouie, make sure to search YouTube to find some of our official Creator Program partners that already put out videos on getting started. Here's just a couple of our favorites:
Rivals 2 is on sale for 50% off from 8/4 - 8/18 to celebrate Gouie’s launch! Tell your friends, or get a great price on a gift for them for the next two weeks via Steam gifting.
All of our Pool Party bundles are going on sale to help keep that summer spirit alive just a little bit longer! You can find them all on the Featured page of the in-game shop with a 20% off reduction tag. This includes our 2025 Pool Party bundle (Loxodont, Clairen, Absa), our Pool Party Forsburn 2025 Midmonth bundle, and our 2026 Pool Party bundle (Slade and Orcane).
Gouie Twitch Drops
To celebrate Gouie's launch on Twitch, we'll be running Twitch Drops for 2 weeks starting today! Pick up 1000 Aether Coins by watching for 1 hour, a new Purple Palette for Gouie by watching for 2 hours, and 100 Aether Bucks by watching for 3 hours total on any channel streaming Rivals with drops enabled. Check out full details on how to claim them here.
New Shop Items
We've got some brand new bundles for our newest, gooiest Rival:
Louie Launch Bundle: He's alive! Play as Gouie when he was still the adorable Louie.
$19.99 and includes 25,000 Coins, 250 Bucks, the Epic Louie Skin, Louie Taunt, Louie Emote, and Louie Icon.
Mired Skin Bundle: What if other Rivals fell prey to the Mire..?
$19.99 and includes the Rare Slime Ranno, Orcane, Etalus, and Slade, plus their corresponding 4 Rare Slime skin icons.
Mega Mired Bundle: Get everything from both of the new bundles for $5 off with the Mega bundle.
Other Gouie cosmetics in this patch include coin shop rewards:
Coin Shop Rewards for Gouie: Mallard Gouie, Black Palette
New Feature: Gameplay Modifiers
We’ve added new Gameplay modifier settings! Mix and match major mechanics to your heart's content with this new feature available in local matches and lobbies. Find them in the Match section of the setting menu.
Matchmaking Improvements
Our backend now tracks Dodges (leaving a matchmade mode without playing a match), and can apply a 12-Hour Ban to repeat offenders to prevent them from continuing to matchmake. We are turning on the tracking today, and after we confirm it looks good we will begin enacting Bans later this week.
New Feature: Queue Doubles, Crews, & FFA Locally
As requested, you can now queue with other players locally (at the same PC!) to find online opponents for Doubles, Crews, and FFA. You can also add local players to lobbies so your friend at your house can play with you and your online friends!
Gameplay Changes
It's been a whole season since our last big balance patch, so after a few months of ladder and tournament matches, we have a bunch of gameplay changes to include with the Gouie update. You can see our reasoning behind impactful changes with the bullet points attached to each one.
New Match Settings: Gameplay Modifiers!
You can now change the following settings in local matches and lobbies in the Match section of the settings menu:
Shields: On/Off - When disabled, pressing the shield button will start a parry instead.
Grabs: On/Off - When disabled, pressing the grab button will perform a strong attack instead.
Ledges: On/Off - When disabled, characters can walljump during their recovery moves. Walljumps will also no longer be restored when hitting an opponent, like in Rivals 1.
Knockdown: On/Off - When disabled, the ground bounce threshold after being spiked in the air is significantly lowered and players will go into the Hitstun Land state when not bouncing. This also makes weak and medium hitstun techable to make it feel more like Rivals 1.
Floorhug: On/Off/Off When Attacking/Crouch Only/Knockdown Only (only moves that send into knockdown can be floorhugged)/Auto-Floorhug Only (only moves with the auto-floorhug flag can be floorhugged)/Auto-Floorhug or Knockdown/Quick (floorhugging is always 4 frames).
Tilt Cancels: On/Off/On Hit Only.
Drift DI: On/Off.
Whifflag: None/Additive/Subtractive/Both - Adds recovery frames on whiff, subtracts recovery frames on hit, or does a little of both. Jabs, tilts, and aerials get 5 frames of whifflag, while dash attacks and strongs get 8 frames, and aerial landing lags get 4 frames.
Hitfalling: On/Off.
Babydash: On/Off.
Quick Parry: On/Off - Reduces the startup of parry to match Rivals 1.
Quick Wavedash: On/Off - Makes wavelands actionable on frame 1.
Knockback Multiplier: x0.5 - x3.
Damage Multiplier: x0.5 - x3.
Hitpause Multiplier: x0.5 - x3.
Shield Damage Multiplier: x0 - x3.
Crouch Cancel Knockback Multiplier: x0 - x2.
Intangible Ledge Grabs: 0 - 5 or infinite.
Preserve Ledge Intangibility: On/Off - When disabled, ledge intangibility will be removed when releasing the ledge.
New Advanced Control option: Hold to Taunt
This option prevents taunting unless the taunt button is held for 8 frames. This prevents accidental taunts when lightly brushing the taunt button without the need to enable Dpad Movement. This also affects pressing taunt in the air.
All characters now have a small hurtbox along the ground during their Dash, Run, and RunTurn states.
This prevents certain dash animations from avoiding low-hitting attacks like Clairen Down Tilt. Previously, only Wrastor had this hurtbox, but now it has been applied universally.
Holding up on the joystick will now only cause a fullhop if the jump was started with tap jump.
Previously, it would cause a fullhop if tap jump was enabled at all. Meaning that you could not shorthop while holding up.
Walljump vertical speed will now decay by 15% of its current value with each use, with a minimum of 50% of the default speed. The decay resets when touching ground, grabbing ledge, or hitting an opponent, but not when getting hit.
This increases the reward for repeatedly knocking an opponent offstage, since each time they walljump in a single recovery, the height gained will significantly decrease.
During states where you can aerial drift, you can now walljump without holding your joystick toward the wall if you have used all of your double jumps (unless you're in the double jump state).
You can no longer drift away from a wall if you have used all of your double jumps and have a jump input in your buffer.
These two changes prevent players from accidentally drifting away from a wall before their buffered walljump input was processed.
Platdrop is now processed before attack inputs.
This allows you to buffer platdrop aerials, where previously that would result in a grounded attack.
Fixed a bug that caused characters to instantly throw an item after grabbing it with a tilt input while dashing when Suppress Dash Attack was enabled.
New character stat added: Hitstun Max Fall Speed
We already had the option to change a character's gravity during hitstun, but that only affected the early frames of hitstun until their vertical speed reached their max fall speed (a set number of frames for each character). Now we can also edit their max fall speed in hitstun, which affects the knockback trajectory for the entire duration of hitstun after reaching their max fall speed, potentially making a much bigger difference on high-knockback hits. For characters with a higher hitstun max fall speed than their normal max fall speed (i.e. Absa, Gouie, etc), their total downward velocity will ease into their normal max fall speed instead of leaving them falling faster than they normally can without a fastfall.
Standing grab ranges decreased almost universally.
The only characters whose grab ranges were not reduced are Wrastor, Maypul, Absa, and Olympia, as their grabs were already very short-range. The main goal of this change is to increase the effectiveness of spacing moves on shield, since shield grabs won't be able to reach the attacker as easily. Generally, characters with the largest grab ranges got the most dramatic grab range decrease, while those with shorter grab ranges were only decreased slightly.
Standing grab startup: 7 > 6
We're reverting the grab startup nerf from when shield grabs became bufferable again because of the following change…
The input buffer will now be shortened to 2 frames at the end of shield stun (except when perfect shielding) and at the end of hitstun land after floorhugging.
Previously, all defensive options out of shield and floorhug could be fully buffered, making them frame perfect more often than not. In order to counter these frame-perfect options, the attacker needed to space/time their attacks nearly perfectly, making approaching a shield more risky than intended. This change gives the attacker more leniency with their offense, since the defender now has to time their counterattacks. As we've seen with previous versions of the game where shield grabs weren't bufferable, this does make dealing with properly-spaced/timed pressure harder, but now that we've tested the alternative, we've decided that we'd rather these interactions favor the attacker, as it gives players more incentive to approach. To reduce this imbalance, we implemented the following change…
If an attack hit a shield and didn't hit a player, the input buffer will now be shortened to 2 frames on its IASA frame, its landing lag IASA frame, or its cancel frame if it's a jab.
This makes shield pressure an even playing field where both players need to time their next move. Without this change, quick tilts that were already barely punishable on shield would be a bit too safe for how easy they are to repeatedly throw out. This still gives the attacker an advantage, since they can input their followup at a consistent timing instead of needing to react to what their opponent does.
Shield health gained on hit reduced from 50% to 25% of the attack's damage.
Shields were regaining health a bit too quickly, so we're reducing the gain by half. This also buffs Etalus' frozen shield mechanic.
Shield dropping during the ShieldRelease state will now require a new Down press if you were holding Down when you started shielding.
This is how shield dropping already works in the ShieldStart and Shield states, so the input will now be consistent. Previously, you would shield drop any time you're holding Down in the ShieldRelease state, which frequently led to unintentional shield drops.
Tech inputs will now be accepted during the first 2 frames of hitpause.
While this extends the tech input window for all attacks, it's mostly intended to help teching against quick multihit moves. Previously, attempting to wall tech a move with multiple low-hitpause hits like Galvan Forward Special (when hit far enough away from the wall to prevent an instant wall tech) was essentially random, with a low chance that your tech input would be successful, since there were more hitpause frames per hit than frames between the hits. Now, hits with very small hitpause values will barely affect your tech inputs at all and will feel less random to tech.
Vertical speed threshold for bouncing off the ground after getting spiked in the air: 26 > 40 cm/f
Minimum remaining hitstun frames required for bouncing off the ground after getting spiked in the air: 60 > 30
Previously, the conditions for bouncing off the ground after being spiked in the air were too strict, so it basically never happened. These new values will make it much more feasible and will lead to more varied combos at high percents.
You can no longer wall tech while in tumble.
This interaction allowed players to drift into the wall and tech it, even after being launched in the opposite direction.
Minimum horizontal speed required to bounce off a wall: 12 > 10
Previously, characters would slide along walls instead of bouncing off of them, even while moving toward them with moderate horizontal speed, so we're lowering the threshold to cause more wall bounces.
Post-parry forced ledge hang duration: 5 > 40 (now accompanied by a dark overlay on the character)
You can now release ledge during the post-parry forced ledge hang to instantly go into the Ledge Slip state for 28 frames.
Previously, the reward for parrying recovery moves was so low that the recovering player could essentially ignore it entirely in most cases. These changes significantly increase the reward for parrying offstage opponents, as they will be vulnerable to attacks after grabbing the ledge. The parried player can opt to release ledge to avoid otherwise guaranteed punishment, at the expense of putting them in a vulnerable state low offstage, away from the wall.
Command grabs and hitgrabs can now be parried while invulnerable.
This allows you to parry grabs like normal after respawning.
Air Acceleration will now be capped at 0.5 after being parried
This reduces the ability to adjust your trajectory after getting parried, which makes it harder to reach a wall or ledge cancel your attack.
Adjusted many Roll, Tech Roll, Getup Roll, and Ledge Roll speeds.
Some rolls were going much too far, making them too safe to use when trying to escape pressure. While some characters had high roll speeds to offset their hurtbox width, they went a bit too far even when taking that width into account. In general, Tech Roll and Getup Roll speeds have been reduced almost globally, reducing the distance that players need to cover in order to tech chase. A few ledge rolls have been shortened, while a few were made longer, just to eliminate some outliers. Numerical details can be found in the character-specific sections.
Removed the cap on vertical knockback speed when bouncing off the walls on Frozen Harbor.
Previously, bouncing off the Frozen Harbor walls would cap your vertical speed to 20cm/f, which meant players would rarely die even without teching. Now, missing the wall tech will be more punishing.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that allowed players to adjust their knockback angle with DI every time they bounced off the walls on Frozen Harbor.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that prevented the wind VFX from spawning on Armada Flagship's platforms when they were about to move.
Tech Roll Speed: 30 > 28
Getup Roll Speed: 28 > 26.5
Ledge Roll Speed: 32 > 29
Hitstun Gravity: 1.5 > 1.4 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 28 > 28.3
This ends up keeping his resistance to vertical KOs approximately the same.
Double Jump animation raised slightly
This reduces the disjoint of his ledge grab box while double jumping.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Aerial Down Special now prevents aerial opponents from ground-bouncing after hitting them
With the newly lowered ground bounce threshold, this move was causing ground bounces at higher percents, preventing it from comboing into the landing hit.
Down Air active frames: 4 > 3 (Recovery adjusted to preserve the full move duration)
Down Air sourspot hitbox radius: 80 > 75 (hitbox moved down 5cm to preserve downward range)
Down Air sweetspot moved 15cm downward
This move was taking up a bit too much space for how much reward it has
Tech Roll Speed: 28.6 > 27.5
Getup Roll Speed: 27.5 > 26.5
Hitstun Gravity: 1.32 > 1.28 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 22.72 > 22.8
This ends up keeping his resistance to vertical KOs approximately the same.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Bubble cooldown when hit by opponent: 30 > 60
Previously, attacks with extremely high hitpause (such as Clairen tippers) would cause the bubble to come off cooldown before Ranno got launched, effectively disabling this mechanic for those attacks.
Up Special divekick landing lag: 32 > 36
Previously, it was almost always better to use the divekick when landing on stage with Up Special, as the reduced airtime was shorter than the extra landing lag. With these extra frames, Ranno will sometimes want to choose not to divekick to avoid the extra lag.
Up Special divekick upper hitbox now only exists on the first active frame
This move had a bit too much upward range, making it decently difficult to attack from above, which didn't fit it as a divekick.
Up Special divekick lower hitbox moved downward slightly
This makes it less inversely disjointed, making it better at beating moves from above.
Aerial drift after using Up Special's spinning poison dart storm until reaching the Special Fall window: 0.64 > 0.25
This makes it less ambiguous where he will land after using this move, allowing the opponent to punish it when used in a bad spot.
Forward Air recovery: 24 > 28
This move was still recovering too quickly after whiffing offstage, allowing Ranno to follow up with another Forward Air immediately afterward.
This makes it send farther at higher percents, forcing Ranno to cover more distance in order to secure a followup.
Forward Strong backmost sourspot active frames: 2 > 1
This hitbox is supposed to represent the smear frames of the attack, but it lingered for an extra frame, which led to some weird interactions where it would hit opponents behind him.
Tech Roll Speed: 30.5 > 29
Getup Roll Speed: 28.6 > 27
Hitstun Gravity: 1.1 > 0.85 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 22.6 > 23.8
This makes him slightly more resistant to vertical knockback, both in combos and for KOs.
Up Special sweetspot hitbox radius: 10 > 15
The size of this hitbox was a little too unforgiving for how short-range it is, especially against thinner characters whose hurtboxes shift around.
Tech Roll Speed: 31.5 > 28
Getup Roll Speed: 30 > 26
Hitstun Gravity: 1.55 > 1.7 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 28.8 > 25.7
This makes attacks generally launch him higher, as his combination of heavy weight and high fall speed made him overly resistant to vertical KOs.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Opponents that land on pillar during an airdodge will no longer gain intangibility if they were in the recovery windows of the airdodge.
Neutral Air hits 1 and 2 hitfall hitstun multiplier: x0.8 > x1.0
This hitfall hitstun multiplier was originally added to prevent it from comboing into grab. Now that his grab's range has been reduced, the grab followup can be avoided with proper DI on top of the already existing counterplay, like floorhugging. Because of this, we're removing the hitfall hitstun multiplier on these hits.
Bug Fix: Fixed a visual bug where Mecha Kragg's gears would be offset incorrectly during his rolls.
Tech Roll Speed: 30 > 27
Getup Roll Speed: 28 > 25.5
Hitstun Gravity: 1.2 > 0.94 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 20.6 > 22
This makes her slightly more resistant to vertical knockback, both in combos and for KOs.
Slow Fall duration: 60 > 45 frames
This reduces the amount of time Fleet can spend stalling offstage while edgeguarding an opponent, slightly increasing the effectiveness of the opponent's recovery mixups.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Ledge Special will now reverse based on which side the opponent is on on its first active frame instead of reversing based on the direction it is fired.
Previously, Fleet could mix up an opponent's DI just by holding left or right, forcing them to guess which way they would be sent. She can still do that if they're just above the arrow on the first active frame, but not if they're on stage.
Neutral Air sweetspot active frames: 3 > 2, sourspot active frames increased by 1 to maintain total active frames.
Neutral Air sweetspot damage: 9 > 7
Neutral Air sourspot damage: 6 > 5
Neutral Air hitpause multipliers reset to x1
We're toning down Neutral Air in a few ways that retain its main strengths. The damage decrease makes it slightly worse on shield.
Forward Throw's initial toss is now untechable.
Bug fix: Forward Throw's final arrow is now techable.
Forward Throw guarantees that all three arrows hit the opponent by making each hit untechable, but the initial toss being techable led to some weird behavior where the arrows would turn abruptly to home in on their target. The final hit was also intended to be techable, but was using the same knockback properties as the first two arrows.
Down Throw startup: 15 > 20
This makes this throw less likely to catch opponents off guard before they can DI properly, while still being fast enough to surprise them in high-pressure situations.
Tech Roll Speed: 28 > 27
Getup Roll Speed: 26.5 > 26
Forward Strong recovery: 30 > 32
This move's range, coupled with Maypul's speed, made it a bit safer than intended, so we're adding a little bit of endlag to it.
Forward Air damage: 8 > 10
This makes it better on shield, going from -6 to -4.
Down Throw recovery: 24 > 20
This increases Maypul's advantage after using this throw, as previously she could barely follow up even if they missed the tech.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that caused her Up Special and Forward Special to be instantly actionable when buffered out of being wrapped.
Tech Roll Speed: 30 > 28
Getup Roll Speed: 28 > 26.5
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Roll Speed: 32 > 29
Tech Roll Speed: 32 > 30
Getup Roll Speed: 30 > 28
Hitstun Gravity: 1.25 > 1.06 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 21 > 21.6
This makes him slightly more resistant to vertical knockback, both in combos and for KOs.
Molten Boulder intangibility frames on spawn/hit: 6 > 3
This makes grounded Neutral Special more vulnerable from the front, since it won't be protected by a large intangible hitbox for as long.
Down Special will now reset its attack count when using level 1, 2, or 3.
This allows the next level 0 Down Special to stall on its first use instead of starting at reduced efficacy.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Jab 1 no longer leans as far back during the startup
Previously, he could use the startup of Jab 1 to dodge attacks, which was a problem since Jab 1 is fast and relatively noncommittal.
Jab 1 active frames: 3 > 2
The size of this move makes it extremely good at safely controlling the space in front of Loxodont. Instead of shrinking the attack, we're reducing its active frames a bit to balance out its size.
Up Strong sweetspot can no longer reverse hit
This addresses a rare situation where opponents behind Loxodont would get barely clipped by the sweetspot and get sent backward.
Down Air no longer squishes as far upward during the startup.
This makes it worse at dodging attacks, but also helps it not cancel before the active frames when rising through a platform at specific heights.
Tech Roll Speed: 30.5 > 28.5
Getup Roll Speed: 28 > 26
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Frames between bubble hits: 7 > 6
Puddle will now disappear after being deployed for 12 seconds
With a permanent puddle, Orcane could always leave it on one side of the stage and then fight on the other side to make sure he could use it as a recovery mixup. Now that it's on a timer, the longer Orcane spends on the other side of the stage from his puddle, the faster he'll need to use it before it despawns. It cannot disappear while Orcane is performing an attack or after Orcane gets KOd (before respawning). Performing a Special Pummel will reset the puddle's timer.
Bubble lifetime: 40 > 35
The intent of these changes is to give Orcane less time (around 6 frames on average) to react to the opponent's ASDI while still allowing for followups on Down Special and Up Throw.
Bubble hitbox radius: 15 > 25
This makes them a bit more consistent for both hitting the opponent and getting parried, making up for their random movement.
Up Air landing lag: 12 > 14
This makes Up Air juggles a bit tighter.
Tech Roll Speed: 30 > 28
Getup Roll Speed: 28 > 26.5
Ledge Roll Speed: 32 > 28
Double Jump animation raised slightly
This reduces the disjoint of his ledge grab box while double jumping.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
New Empowered Special Pummel: Forsburn spawns a clone, who then throws the opponent in a random direction while Forsburn is actionable behind him.
Forsburn can now command his clone by pressing the Parry button while holding an opponent after grabbing them.
This allows him to command super clone to attack without performing a pummel himself.
Ledge Attack now has a hitbox at the bottom for the first 2 frames.
This removes a deadzone where the move would commonly whiff against recovering opponents.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where canceling Getup Special while empowered would leave you with a super clone that responded to your Special presses like a normal clone.
Roll Speed: 32 > 31
Tech Roll Speed: 31 > 29
Getup Roll Speed: 30 > 27
Ledge Roll Speed: 28 > 24
Hitstun Gravity: 1.5 > 1.56 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 27.6 > 25
This makes attacks generally launch him higher, as his combination of heavy weight and high fall speed made him overly resistant to vertical KOs.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Ice armor can now only be removed when Etalus is hit with a hitbox or thrown
This prevents him from losing armor to passive damage, like Zetterburn's fire. The armor will still lose health any time he takes damage, but can only be fully removed by a hit/throw.
Neutral Special shield damage multiplier: x0.66 < x1.0
This makes it deal ~45 shield damage (a full shield has 50 health), making it much more terrifying to shield.
Getting hit out of his Up Special while it's charging will now increment his Up Special counter
Previously, he would only receive diminishing returns on Up Special if he actually launched, but now the opponent will be rewarded more for interrupting him while charging.
Up Strong hit 1 now has 2 hitboxes at the top on the last active frame with knockback: 13 + 0 > 8.5 + 0
This makes it less likely for opponents hit by the top of hit 1 to get launched too high for hit 2 to connect.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that prevented the "Ice is Right" achievement from triggering.
Tech Roll Speed: 28 > 27
Getup Roll Speed: 27 > 25.5
Ledge Roll Speed: 27 > 28.5
Hitstun Gravity: 1.6 > 1.85 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 33.07 > 32
This ends up keeping her resistance to vertical KOs approximately the same.
Crystalized opponents will now break out of the crystal when colliding with a ceiling
This makes it consistent with its wall collision behavior, and makes it work better on stages with ceilings, like Fire Tower.
Bug Fix: Neutral Special's projectile will no longer set up a gem field if Olympia is KOd when it finishes its trajectory.
Forward Special Gem Hit Leap window duration: 36 > 40
Pressing Special after 20 frames of Forward Special's Gem Hit Leap window will now toss the gem early.
This adds some flexibility to when she throws the gem, and extends the range where she can slam it into the ground.
Down Tilt all hitboxes: radius increased by 5cm.
This move was a little too stubby for how many different hitboxes and knockback angles it has, so we're increasing the size of the hitboxes slightly.
Down Tilt tip hitbox knockback angle: 55 > 65
Down Tilt middle hitbox knockback angle: 65 > 70
This increases the reward on the outer hits of Down Tilt, as the range is still very short and we want to reward Olympia for closing the distance on her opponents.
Back Throw knockback angle: 125 > 120
Back Throw recovery: 25 > 21
This increases the effectiveness of Back Throw against suboptimal DIs, while still allowing a full escape with good DI.
Up Throw recovery: 32 > 30
We're reverting the recovery increase introduced in patch 1.3.3, because the air mobility changes in patch 1.5.5 decreased this throw's effectiveness a bit too much.
Tech Roll Speed: 28 > 27
Getup Roll Speed: 26.1 > 25.5
Hitstun Gravity: 0.95 > 0.83 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 17 > 19.5
Absa was a bit of an outlier when it came to vertical knockback resistance, being extremely hard to combo and extremely easy to KO. She will still be the most extreme in both of these categories, excluding Gouie, but not by such a severe margin.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that doubled the width of Up Special's ledge grab box when it was traveling straight downward.
This was a mechanic that existed when Up Special's ledge grab box only extended in front of Absa, and was unintentionally left in when the ledge grab box was adjusted to reach both sides.
Up Special recovery 1 start window length: 3 > 5
Up Special recovery 2 start window length: 12 > 17
These windows are the stalled recovery windows that Absa goes through before she can cancel Up Special into an attack. These changes increase the punishability of Up Special, especially on the 2nd zip. This does not increase the time between Up Special zips.
Up Special damage: 4 > 3
This lowers the amount of damage Absa can rack up while using this move to poke at the opponent.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that caused Up Special to move backward when hitting something on the frame after passing the corner of a solid object or platform.
Jab 1 and 2 recovery: 10 > 15
This makes her jab more committal, since her close-quarters pressure was a bit stronger than intended and closing the distance on Absa should usually be a rewarding position. This does not affect the cancel windows, so jab/tilt followups will be unchanged.
Jab 1 and 2 inner hitbox radius: 45 > 35
This decreases the inward range of her jab.
Getup Roll Speed: 30 > 28
Ledge Roll Speed: 32 > 30
Hitstun Gravity: 1.56 > 1.75 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 25.6 > 25.1
This ends up keeping his resistance to vertical KOs approximately the same.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Jab 3 minimum number of hits before the finisher: 5 > 3
This allows him to more quickly get to the final hit, giving opponents less of a chance to escape if he doesn't hold it.
Hitting with an attack that spawns a drill will now preserve his galvanized status.
This allows him to finish his combos with a drill-spawning attack without sacrificing his galvanized status. It also allows him to go for risky Down Airs offstage, since he will now be able to recover if it hits.
Special Pummel's magnetize will now become weaker when the opponent is more than 10m away horizontally, reaching zero effect at 15m. It will also not pull opponents whose horizontal knockback velocity is greater than 26cm/f.
This prevents magnetize from messing up his KO moves, since it won't affect them at high percents.
Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that would cause CPU Galvan to perform a neutral-angled Up Special when only a forward-angled one would reach the ledge.
Roll Speed: 30 > 28.5
Tech Roll Speed: 31 > 27
Getup Roll Speed: 29 > 25
Hitstun Gravity: 1.55 > 1.6 (default)
Hitstun Max Fall Speed: 24.5 > 24.4
This ends up keeping her resistance to vertical KOs approximately the same.
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Chair will no longer be destroyed when passing the side blastzones.
This allows La Reina to use her chair even when right next to the blastzone, which can be occasionally useful when trying to avoid edgeguard attempts.
Chair bottom blastzone buffer distance: 1m > 2m
This makes the chair take slightly longer to despawn when falling into the bottom blastzone, giving La Reina more time to recall it while also extending the time before its cooldown starts.
Bug Fix: Neutral Special chair recall location will now move inward if her hand is inside a solid platform.
This prevents some weird situations where the chair would struggle to return to La Reina.
Forward Special spike hitpause multiplier: x1 > x0.5
This makes teching this move on stage more lenient, since you won't be locked out of teching for quite as long, while also making it less reactable on hit.
Up Special recovery on hit: 16 > 26
This forces La Reina to land after slamming an opponent into the ground in most cases, solidifying this move as a finisher instead of a strong combo tool. The farther she falls with this move, the higher she bounces, so she can still avoid landing if she falls far enough before slamming the opponent.
Up Special will now go into the Land state when landing during the on-hit recovery window.
This combines with the change above to fix a visual bug, but also allows her to cancel the recovery early if she lands earlier than normal, usually due to an upward-moving platform.
Down Special's roll resource will now be consumed on the first startup frame.
This rewards opponents for interrupting the startup of this incredibly strong recovery tool. This also means the resource will be consumed if the roll fails due to the chair being on cooldown.
Down Special's roll can no longer hit projectiles.
This makes it more vulnerable to projectiles while recovering. This does not affect its interactions with her chair.
Dash Attack spike hitboxes shrunk and moved forward.
This makes the later active frames of Dash Attack less disjointed. The hitboxes have also been moved forward so that this attack must be aimed a little more precisely during edgeguards.
Forward and Up Strong hit 1 can no longer hit projectiles
This makes them function more like grabs than hitgrabs against projectiles (since they are technically both). This change does not include projectiles that can be grabbed, like her chair or Kragg's rock.
Up Air recovery after breaking through the table: 28 > 36
This reduces the range of percents where La Reina can get another Up Air afterward on DI in. This only affects her when landing on the table, not the platform held up by her adoring fans, so she will still get double Up Air combos on DI in.
Down Air knockback angle: 75 > 72
Even after the last angle change for this move, it was still confirming too freely into her strongest finishers regardless of DI. This change lets the opponent get farther away from La Reina with the correct DI, often limiting her to her more long-ranged options, like Forward Air instead of Up Air.
Roll Speed: 28.5 > 27
Tech Roll Speed: 30 > 27
Getup Roll Speed: 28 > 25.5
Ledge Roll Speed: 28 > 32
Standing Grab range reduced.
This is part of the universal grab range reduction change.
Forward Special 3 Downward will now prevent ground bounces when hitting aerial opponents.
This preserves its previous functionality with the newly lowered ground bounce threshold.
Forward Air hit 1's tip hitbox moved closer to the gameplay plane on its first active frame.
Previously, it could whiff against opponents at the farthest spacing due to the hitbox being too far in the foreground. This change makes it more likely to hit at max range on the first active frame.
Boomerang will now reflect if parried in the first 30 active frames after being thrown.
This makes it behave like other similar projectiles on parry, while retaining the previous behavior when it gets parried on the way back.
Treasure Chest pickup range adjusted to be a rectangle instead of a circle
Previously, taller items would have a shorter effective pickup range, since the item's center must be in the Treasure Chest's range. This change makes it more consistently pick up items near the edges.
Treasure Chest pickup range width: 180cm > 200cm
This allows it to pick up items from slightly farther away
Treasure Chest can now fire items in the Hurt state if its owner was the last player to hit it.
This allows Slade to quickly reposition his chest without locking himself out of commanding it.
Pirate Hook's grab now reaches 40cm lower on the first active frame
This prevents situations where it would whiff at point-blank range against characters low to the ground.
The Pirate Hook icon will now be grayed out when Slade has used his aerial Pirate Hook resource.
To celebrate Gouie's launch, tune in to any Rivals streams on Twitch with drops enabled for the next two weeks to claim some rewards! From 8/4 at 10am PT - 8/18 10am PT you can claim the following drops: Gouie Launch Celebration Drop Rewards Reward Watch Time to Unlock 1000 Aethe
To celebrate Gouie's launch, tune in to any Rivals streams on Twitch with drops enabled for the next two weeks to claim some rewards! From 8/4 at 10am PT - 8/18 10am PT you can claim the following drops:
Gouie Launch Celebration Drop Rewards
Reward
Watch Time to Unlock
1000 Aether Coins
1 Hour
Purple Gouie Palette
2 Hours
100 Aether Bucks
3 Hours
How to Unlock
Once you've earned a Drop, you'll see a notification in your Twitch Inventory in the top right where you can claim your item. Visit your Twitch Drops Inventory to claim your item. Then follow the link to this page, where you can log into your Aether Account, then click the "Unlock your Twitch Drops items in ROA2" button. Make sure you link your correct account or you won't receive your drops in game. If you're not sure what your Aether Account email address is, just press start on the main menu of Rivals II to see your account email.
We've recently updated the main Steam branch of Rivals II to the latest version of Unreal Engine (5.8). Unfortunately, mods created in previous versions of Unreal are incompatible with this version and will need to be updated to work. As we plan to move Workshop out of beta and i
We've recently updated the main Steam branch of Rivals II to the latest version of Unreal Engine (5.8).
Unfortunately, mods created in previous versions of Unreal are incompatible with this version and will need to be updated to work. As we plan to move Workshop out of beta and into the main game soon, this means ALL mods created with our previous modkits must be updated. Luckily, the process is simple.
To get your mod up to date, download the latest 5.8 modkit and simply recompile your mod. Please make sure you test your 5.8 workshop items on the new public 5.8 workshop branch available on Steam.
In one week, we'll be making the new 5.8 version of the Workshop Beta the default Workshop branch for Rivals 2. At this time we'll also private all mods older than 5.8 so that we only have functional mods visible on the workshop. Make sure to update your item on Steam Workshop to a 5.8 compatible version if you'd like it to still be listed and playable.
Just last weekend Rivals II was featured at Evo 2026 as one of the main event games. We represented the platform fighter community on the largest stage in fighting games, which included a record-breaking Rivals tournament with 1,022 entrants! On top of the tournament, we also had
Just last weekend Rivals II was featured at Evo 2026 as one of the main event games. We represented the platform fighter community on the largest stage in fighting games, which included a record-breaking Rivals tournament with 1,022 entrants! On top of the tournament, we also had a panel, a booth where you could play our next character early, chances to play the devs, multiple reveals, and more.
If you missed it live, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here's a full recap of everything that happened:
Character Reveals
Gouie
At the start of our Top 8 on Saturday, we revealed our next upcoming character: Gouie - The Lost Mireling! Gouie is our 7th free character coming to Rivals 2. Stay tuned for plenty of more news on him as we all look forward to the August 4th release date. See the first look here in his official reveal trailer.
Gouie is voiced by both the talented Gina Scarpa and Justice Washington. You can hear both The Mire and Gouie speaking at different points (and sometimes together) during their gameplay.
Mina the Hollower
Immediately after our Gouie trailer on the big stage, we had one more special announcement to reveal in unprecedented back-to-back character news. We announced that our first guest character, Mina the Hollower, will be arriving in Rivals 2 in 2027:
We're incredibly excited to work with our talented friends at Yacht Club Games to bring Mina into the world of Aether. Keep an eye out for more news on her release next year.
2027 Roadmap
In what's becoming a tradition for us, Dan and Trevor shared our latest roadmap on the Evo Showcase Stage on Friday. Check out the VOD here to get the full conversation with all the details:
We also announced during the showcase that a new 2D workshop tool is now available! The tool is still undergoing a lot of work on our side, but soon it will let you import characters from Rivals 1 to Rivals 2 workshop with the click of a button.
Last but not least, the core of Evo is the competition, and we saw some of the best Rivals II played yet. If you missed the event live, you can check out the VODs below:
Evo 2026 Day 1: Rivals of Aether II Pools: View game page
Evo 2026 Day 2: Rivals of Aether II Round 2, 3, and Top 24:View game page
Evo 2026: Rivals of Aether II Top 8 Playlist:View game page
Aether Studios is heading out to Las Vegas for Evo 2026! We'll be running a booth, watching, and playing in the biggest Rivals II event of all time with over 1000 entrants! We also have a few special announcements planned for the weekend. Here's how to tune in from home: View the
Aether Studios is heading out to Las Vegas for Evo 2026! We'll be running a booth, watching, and playing in the biggest Rivals II event of all time with over 1000 entrants! We also have a few special announcements planned for the weekend. Here's how to tune in from home:
View the full schedule along with higher resolution graphics for all of the Evo streams at evo.gg/schedule
If you only have time to watch a portion of the Evo streams this weekend, make sure to tune in to twitch.tv/evo for our Developer Showcase Stream on Friday at 12pm PT, and the same channel for our Top 8 on Saturday at 6pm PT.
Twitch Drops
On any Evo stream featuring Rivals this weekend, you can grab free Aether Coins, Icons, Bucks, and a palette just for watching! To receive the drops, just tune into the tournament stream for the allotted time, link your Twitch and Aether accounts, and then claim your drops. Check out the details here:
Evo 2026 Drop Rewards
Reward
Watch Time to Unlock
1000 Aether Coins
1 Hour
Evo La Reina Drop Icon (New!)
2 Hours
Evo Olympia Drop Icon (Rerun from Evo 2025)
2.5 Hours
100 Aether Bucks
3 Hours
La Reina Purple Palette (Rerun from Purple Drops)
4 Hours
How to Unlock
Once you've earned a Drop, you'll see a notification in your Twitch Inventory in the top right where you can claim your item. Visit your Twitch Drops Inventory to claim your item. Then follow the link to this page, where you can log into your Aether Account, then click the "Unlock your Twitch Drops items in ROA2" button. Make sure you link your correct account or you won't receive your drops in game. If you're not sure what your Aether Account email address is, just press start on the main menu of Rivals II to see your account email.
FYI, Most of this hotfix went out last week on 6/18, but didn't include notes. The Frozen Harbor fixes are new as of this morning's update that included Creator Bundle 2 . We're sharing these today in the Steam patchnotes section for clarity on the latest changes: Changed the but
FYI, Most of this hotfix went out last week on 6/18, but didn't include notes. The Frozen Harbor fixes are new as of this morning's update that included Creator Bundle 2. We're sharing these today in the Steam patchnotes section for clarity on the latest changes:
Changed the button that saves the Stick Calibration setting from A to Start.
The top bar that displays the progress of a BO3 or BO5 set can now be enabled in Offline Versus.
Implemented a tentative fix for a rare crash on Metal Refinery stage.
Fixed Match History not updating anymore for some people.
Fixed boot issues caused by the shader cache loading process after a GPU driver update.
Stage and Item Changes
Frozen Harbor's walls will no longer get stuck if someone bounces off of them while they're rising.
Frozen Harbor's walls' visuals now match the collision.
Crystal Valley's bottom blastzone moved downward.
Armada Fleet: All platforms count as hard ground and restore ALL resources, not just some of them (e.g. you didn't get Kragg pillar back when landing on the starting ship).
We're excited to announce Creator Bundle 2 is here! Creator Bundle 2 is another sick bundle full of skins, icons, titles & more based on another awesome set of creators who have been killing it supporting Rivals 2. Here are this bundles featured creators: Plup Last Stock Thro
We're excited to announce Creator Bundle 2 is here!
Creator Bundle 2 is another sick bundle full of skins, icons, titles & more based on another awesome set of creators who have been killing it supporting Rivals 2. Here are this bundles featured creators:
Plup
Last Stock
ThrownOrc
Toma_
ZeusDahGoose
Coach Zeke
Ep1c
Lynn Petals
Bowler
This bundle doesn't just support these named creators, though. When you use any creator's code on this bundle, instead of the usual 5%, that creator will receive a 25% share.
If you haven't used a Creator Code yet, you can enter it in the in-game shop by clicking the "Support A Creator" button. And the best part is - you also receive an extra 5% Aether Bucks kickback whenever you make real-money purchases with a Creator code on!
Thanks again to our awesome community, creators, and players. We hope you enjoy these new features to support your favorite creators!
These patchnotes are for our Workshop Beta branch on steam. To learn how to access this beta build please visit: View game page Client As a part of getting closer to leaving the beta phase for Workshop, we've been working behind the scenes to test base game functionality of the w
These patchnotes are for our Workshop Beta branch on steam. To learn how to access this beta build please visit: View game page
Client
As a part of getting closer to leaving the beta phase for Workshop, we've been working behind the scenes to test base game functionality of the workshop client to ensure there hasn’t been any regression in stability. In today’s Workshop Beta version we’ve enabled the dedicated server which means match making queues and lobbies are available. We know that playing the base game isn’t really the focus of the "workshop beta” but we ask that if you do happen to be playing in matchmaking or lobbies on this build and run into issue please report anything and everything you find to our nolt board.
PLEASE BE AWARE if you play ranked in this build it WILL affect your real Elo, and we can not restore your Elo individually to account for crashes or other issues specific to this beta branch.
Note: We do not have a concrete timeframe for how long the server will be online for. We will post an update when they are taken down.
Note: We are still actively working on the contents of this. If you have any suggestions please let us know.
Known Issue: The mobile site is busted and will receive a hotfix later this week.
Editor
Fixed: Flipbooks assigned in Attack Data windows now route to the correct slot instead of all sharing “Attack”
Tweaked: Disabled Steam overlay in editor
Added: Multiple new Photobooth shortcuts
Capture Item Portrait
Open Skin/Palette in Photobooth
Fixed: Photobooth CSP capture crash
Fixed: Item and Character name being blank in modding tool ui after creation
Fixed: FMOD deploy script build option now functions properly
Added: FMOD deploy script now displays a list of all Banks present and allows users to only deploy specific bank(s) instead of every UGC bank deploying.
Tweaked: Pointed “Workshop Documentation" website button at new documentation site
Tweaked: The “ArcadeModeData fix” process is now automated and no longer needed
Fixed: Workshop toggle will now appear in Arcade
Added: EnableArcadeMode (defaults to false) allows a modder to disable/enable their character in arcade mode.
This is mainly intended as a means to prevent unfinished content from causing negative reviews/crashes of mods
Tweaked: Steam preview image is now selected from a UTexture2d asset within Unreal instead of being a path on your computer
Note: If you create a UTexture2d asset named SteamPreview under the UnrealAssets directory, this image will be used as the preview image automatically and persist so you don't have to reset it every time.
Bug fix: La Reina and Slade will now use their character-specific respawn platforms and death effects as Arcade mode CPUs. Bug fix: The timer countdown announcer lines will no longer play when playtesting. Bug fix: The announcer will no longer say "Player Defeated" when a solo cr
Bug fix: La Reina and Slade will now use their character-specific respawn platforms and death effects as Arcade mode CPUs.
Bug fix: The timer countdown announcer lines will no longer play when playtesting.
Bug fix: The announcer will no longer say "Player Defeated" when a solo crew loses a character.
Added missing title prefixes:
The Archer
The Molten
The Glacier's
Added missing title suffixes:
of Justice
Emperor
Might
Catching her chair with Neutral Special will now restore her chair resource.
She got the chair back, so she can deploy it again.
Neutral Special and Down Special will now use their cooldown animations when trying to deploy a chair with no chair resource.
Previously, they would just do nothing. This allows La Reina to use these moves to B-reverse for recovery mixups, the same as if the chair was on cooldown.
Summer has officially begun in the world of Aether! Time to get those swimsuits on and join us for the return of our Summer theme - Pool Party Splashback. Our latest bundle includes 2 new Pool Party skins: Pool Party Slade, and Pool Party Orcane with their own icons to match, plu
Summer has officially begun in the world of Aether! Time to get those swimsuits on and join us for the return of our Summer theme - Pool Party Splashback. Our latest bundle includes 2 new Pool Party skins: Pool Party Slade, and Pool Party Orcane with their own icons to match, plus coins and bucks. Check out the trailer right here:
Players equipping any of the new event skins, or any of the following skins will receive 20% Bonus XP on the event track: Pool Party Loxodont, Pool Party Clairen, Pool Party Ranno, Pool Party Absa, and Pool Party Forsburn.
New Event Track Rotation
With the launch of this year’s Pool Party event, we’re also adjusting how our event schedule works. Events will now last 3 months, and have expanded content and rewards to match the extra length.
Moving to this schedule allows us to give a similar amount of rewards for time played compared to the old event lengths, while freeing up some of our dev time that used to be spent on new themes each month for larger impact features.
With this summer’s free event track you can unlock the Pool Party Olympia Skin, the Pool Party Platform, Pool Party Slade emote, and the Pool Party Surfsplosion death effect just like a typical monthly event. The new expanded event track now ALSO includes even more like…
Two returning skins.
Two new palettes for each returning skin.
Two new palettes for the new Pool Party Olympia Skin
Two new Pool Party Icons
Two new prefix titles
Two new suffix titles
A new Pool Party Critical Hit
And even more Aether Bucks and Aether Coins!
Introducing the Announcer
We’re excited today to add a highly requested feature - Rivals 2 now has an announcer! Christopher Maher brings tons of energy and extra oomph to menus and gameplay. You may recognize his voice as well from many of our monthly event trailers.
If you prefer things quieter, you can always disable this new feature in your audio settings. We plan to offer other types of announcers in the future as well as a way to switch between them, so let us know what options you want to hear.
New Cosmetic Type - Titles & Nameplates
Players can now customize a two-word combination title that appears alongside their name. Some you unlock will be prefixes, and other suffixes, so you can mix and match your favorites to add some fun flair to your tag.These will be available through in-game events, the coin & buck shop, and even sometimes from live Rivals events.
Behind each title is a colored nameplate that’s customizable as well. You’ll unlock one this month in the new event track. We thought these would also be a great way to celebrate Pride month, so we’ve added a free nameplate bundle to the shop (just like our free icon bundle last year) featuring tons of Pride themed nameplates.
New Shop Items
Palettes
Cool Blue Galvan is finally available!
Icons
These new icons are available:
Sparkfang Icon
Ridgehorn Icon
Stingstream Icon
Cobbleclaw Icon
Chillchomp Icon
Stonedra Icon
New Ranked Shop Items
Champion Slade has been added to the Ranked Shop! This includes a skin, two emotes, and two new icons for The Swagger of the Sea.
Audio Updates
Announcer feature added (as well as the announcer setting in the menu).
Pool Party Orcane has a custom win jingle + deflating sounds when he gets KO'ed.
Slade's Up Special sound timing has been fixed.
In an earlier patch, when adding Wrastor's new voice-lines, we removed the lines "Go With The Flow!" and "Too Easy!" from his taunts 1 and 2 respectively. Some players requested we bring them back, so were-added a chance to play both of them together with the new ones.
Gameplay Updates
MATCHMAKING IMPROVEMENTS
Ranked Matchmaking now has an additional constraint that tries to keep matches within a 200 Elo difference. The goal with this change is to avoid really lopsided matches and let matchmaking work a little longer to find a balanced game, especially within the most active & populated skill range.
Ultimately it’s a balance between matchmaking time, and finding ideal matches. We think this will improve things and not increase matchmaking time too badly on average, but we will be keeping a close eye on it!
How it works: This rule limits you to 200 away from an adjusted version of your Elo. To account for varying player counts depending on where you are in the skill curve this rule applies primarily within the Elos of 650 and 1350, and outside that range your adjusted Elo is clamped into it. What this means is if 200 away from your Elo hits one of these bounds, then it includes the full breadth of players in that direction, and then lets our existing matchmaking rules decide if it’s a valid match (limited to a max of 1 Rank away and a gradually increasing Elo difference). This allows the rule to be relatively strict for players near the median of our skill curve, where the most players are, without being overly restrictive as you move outwards into ranges with fewer players and wider Elo gaps.
Ie. If you are 1000 Elo: you would have a range of 800-1200 for opponents that the constraint would try to enforce.
If you are 1200 Elo: you would have a minimum bound of 1000, but your upper limit hits that 1350 limit, so our normal rules that constrain you to a max of 1 Rank away would apply instead, leaving you with a range of 1000 to 1499 (after expanding fully).
GENERAL
Added an announcer!
Grounded knockback velocity decay will now use the character's default ground friction value.
Previously, it would decay by the character's current ground friction value (which could be zero if they used an attack with no ground friction), leading to some weird behavior, especially near ledges.
Players in parry stun can now be pushed by other players after 5 frames
Parry stun is now rooted after 5 frames
This allows players to space their moves normally without worrying about overshooting a stunned player due to the lack of pushback, while still preventing them from pushing the stunned player off a ledge.
Performing a wall tech will now prevent grabbing the ledge for 30 frames unless you start an attack
Previously, this would only apply after the wall tech state naturally ended, so canceling it with an action that can instantly grab ledge (such as the early frames of Absa's double jump) would allow characters to grab ledge after a wall tech much faster than intended.
Fixed a bug that randomized the RNG seed at the start of each match in Arcade mode.
ITEMS
Bee Hive: Reduced maximum duration when passed to another character.
Previously, the Bee Hive would reset its duration every time it was passed. This could lead to Bee Hives staying active for long periods of time, which some players found frustrating. Now, the duration will be set to the maximum of its current duration or 3 seconds, instead of resetting to 12 seconds on every pass. The initial duration of 12 seconds is unchanged.
Proximity Mine: Final explosion hitpause adjusted to match the animation better.
Forward Special will now only automatically perform the tail swipe on contact with opponents if you are holding the Special button.
Previously, opponents could stop Orcane from recovering with this move by getting near it and then dodging the tail swipe. Now Orcane can release Special to disable the auto-swipe, allowing him to continue through an opponent.
Forward Special knockback angle: 50 > 55
The non-empowered version of this move was KOing a bit too early offstage, especially with all the ways Orcane can combo into it.
During Forward Special's leap, Orcane can now only absorb a puddle while rising.
This prevents situations where Orcane would end the leap right above the puddle and get the empowered version of the move. Now Orcane will need to leap into the puddle from below if he wants to absorb it in motion.
Back Air hit 1 active frames: 3 > 4
Back Air frames between hits: 1 > 0
This prevents some odd situations where Back Air could whiff on nearby opponents where it looked like it should hit them.
La Reina can now only spawn one chair per airtime.
This change does not apply if the chair was spawned before La Reina became airborne, so she can always spawn a chair while recovering as long as it's not on cooldown. Landing on her offstage platform does not refresh this resource.
This change applies to both Neutral Special and Down Special, and is intended to prevent her from constantly refreshing her resources while being edgeguarded. While these extended chair recoveries had plenty of counterplay at the top level of gameplay, they gave La Reina too many chances to recover (with high reversal potential) at the level of play where the La Reina players are able to do them but the opponents aren't doing the optimal edgeguards. In general, we've been gradually trying to address excessive rinse-repeat edgeguards by adding diminishing returns to recovery moves or limiting recovery resources, and this was an extreme outlier on a character whose recovery is intended to be a weakness.
Bomb will no longer spawn with its hitbox interpolated.
This prevents a rare situation where the bomb would detect an opponent, but then the explosion would miss them and only hit Slade's hand.
This Thursday tune into a dev stream featuring special guests Mend and Rafa from our music and audio partner Moonsailor studios . We'll be chatting all about the music of Rivals 2 for the first time in this highly requested topic for our dev streams. Viewer questions encouraged a
This Thursday tune into a dev stream featuring special guests Mend and Rafa from our music and audio partner Moonsailor studios. We'll be chatting all about the music of Rivals 2 for the first time in this highly requested topic for our dev streams. Viewer questions encouraged as usual!
Tune in on YouTube or Twitch at 1pm ET / 12pm CT / 10am PT / 7pm CET this Thursday (5/28).
Stage outlines Off (left) vs On (right) with R1 Camera.
