You’d be forgiven for those who’d by no means heard of the unique Rivals of Aether – it was a wonderful however area of interest Smash Bros-style preventing sport with a modest but devoted viewers. Nevertheless, due to its slick new look and the clout of a widely known livestreamer, there’s a greater likelihood of you listening to about Rivals of Aether 2. The long-awaited sequel has simply dropped, and already it’s doing brilliantly on the Steam charts with over thrice extra gamers than its predecessor ever racked up on the platform.
Regardless of now having superb 3D fashions of its Pokémon-esque brawlers, Rivals of Aether 2 sticks to its Smash roots with 2D motion, injury calculated in percentages, platforms, aerials, and ledge grabs. The preventing sport is launching with a roster of ten characters – some are coming back from the unique with contemporary designs, whereas others are fully new.
Developer Aether Studios says it can always be including extra fighters over time and that every one new additions will probably be completely free.
The sport is launching with PvP modes to start with, and you may tackle opponents on-line or domestically due to split-screen. You possibly can apply your expertise in opposition to AI-controlled opponents too, do you have to want. Nevertheless, there are plans for story content material to reach within the sport in keeping with its post-launch roadmap.
With arguably its largest challenger on Steam, MultiVersus, struggling a significant droop proper now, it’s an excellent time to be launching. It’s additionally getting a variety of assist from Ludwig Ahgren, one of many largest livestreamers and content material creators on YouTube and a stalwart of the preventing sport group. Rivals of Aether 2 is the primary videogame being printed by Offbrand Video games, a by-product of the Offbrand firm Ahgren based in 2022.
So, simply how sturdy a begin has Rivals of Aether 2 loved? On the time of writing, it has peaked at over 10,700 concurrent gamers on Steam and there’s nonetheless potential for that quantity to climb larger. For perspective that’s greater than thrice larger than the all-time peak participant depend achieved by the primary Rivals of Aether, and is round 5 occasions larger than the present day by day participant depend of MultiVerses. Spectacular stuff.
It’s doing decently on the consumer critiques entrance too, with 85% of 148 Steam gamers ranking it positively.
Rivals of Aether 2 is out now on Steam and is 10% off till Wednesday, November 6. If you wish to decide it up or just be taught extra in regards to the sport, head over to its retailer web page right here.
For extra nice PvP experiences, head over to our rundown of the most effective multiplayer video games. Alternatively, check out what else if coming your approach for the rest of 2024 and past in our checklist of upcoming PC video games.
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