Rivals of Aether II on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Rivals of Aether II is the sequel to the hit indie fighting game, Rivals of Aether. Play as both new and returning elemental fighters in the next generation of platform fighters.
Rivals of Aether II is a fighting, multiplayer and indie game
developed by Aether Studios
and published by Aether Studios and offbrand games.
Released on October 23rd 2024 is available only on Windows
in 7 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Portuguese - Brazil and Spanish - Latin America.
It has received 7,294 reviews of which 5,963 were positive and 1,331 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.0 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 24.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Rivals of Aether II into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Window 10+ 64 Bit
- Processor: 3.0 GHz Dual core
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, AMD Radeon RX 470, or better
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 20 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
When workshop is out of beta I'd suggest this game to everyone, but right now it's still incredibly fun if you're more than just a casual.
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Not beginner friendly. That's why I don't play it. It's genuinely one of the coolest and most amazing games, though. Definitely better with friends if you want the casual experience (that is, if your friends are casual) but if you're willing to sit through getting walloped until you inevitably look up a guide on how to not suck ass, it's a damn good time. Edit: After playing this game again, I can confirm that it's not beginner friendly. But to be real, It's the greatest platform fighter that has ever been created in my opinion. The movement is buttery, the combos flow like water in a river, and every tech and mechanic is intended and tweaked to perfection. The game pretty regularly updates and it's overall just a blast to play. After getting better from an extra 9 hours in the past two days or so, I can definitely confirm that the community is pretty chill and while they're also pretty sweaty, they're welcoming to teach others the ways of the sweats. So like play the damn game.
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tl;dr, everyone agrees this game is fantastic visually, most agree it is fantastic mechanically, and most agree it has the best netcode of any fighting game. but if you are not interested in competitive fighting games, or interested in learning to play fighting games, you might want to wishlist this game and wait til it's on sale! rivals of aether 2 is a great game, with a great dev team, and a . . . community! i understand why there are so many negative reviews, but i feel so bad for the dev team. they clearly put a lot of heart into making a product that EVEN THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS tend to praise. there is a ton of passion and talent and hard work put into rivals of aether 2, but its player ecosystem is dangerously poised to diminish into unprofitability down the road. hopefully, the workshop update remedies that, and casual players can enjoy tons of free new content with their friends! this is basically a perfect fighting game, on paper! it's easy to pick up but hard to master, lots of fun interactions and collectibles for casual play, and a roster where (almost) every character is competitively viable and feels completely different. it maintains the mechanical complexity of smash bros melee while making it more accessible like the other smash bros games! you will be "wavedashing" like a pro within your first session, but using those mechanics to beat people is not so easy! rivals of aether 2 is like melee for people who have a job-- except, therein lies the problem! this game is fantastic, but it heavily lacks single player content. that's fine on the surface, because it's supposed to be played mostly online; but the "rivals of aether ecosystem" is contracting, as far as i can tell. at launch, this game had about 10000 active players, and there are about 500 today (by my lazy estimates). WHAT HAPPENED?! aside from the natural contraction every game has, just look at the reviews here on steam! the average player experience in rivals of aether 2 is "oh wow, this game looks awesome!", they pick a character they think is fun and/or they bought a body pillow of, then some sweaty hog 3-stocks them and BMs, and they quit and (rightfully) complain the game is too tryhard. if there was more single player content, the problem would not be so severe, but as it stands, rivals of aether 2 has a feedback loop of retaining the most competitive players, which sheds casual players, thereby making the average player more competitive. the mean ELO is higher than the median for a reason; the game skews significantly toward tryhards! it's an easier problem to identify than to solve; players love the beautiful visuals of this game, but maintaining that visual fidelity in a single player experience would be VERY expensive! however, a mostly online game has to pay for servers, and i worry that eventually the lack of casual retention will make it difficult to keep the game afloat... which is the better financial move in the long run, i'm not sure! btw, anyone who complains about this game having cosmetics you can buy with real money can eat a grenade, wtf do you expect, a $30 game that's almost entirely online and has updates like twice a month to just not have any revenue streams whatsoever? i have never felt restricted in my options for cosmetics and i have never spent a $ on this game outside of the initial purchase. go ask for your mom's credit card if it bothers you other people have the newest skins. she gave it to me when i asked!!
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The only good smash clone to ever exist lol. game is really great but lack of casual elements turns newcomers away from it, however the game is pretty much STILL in beta so when they finish everything in like 3 years im sure it will be peak
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No, Rivals II is not perfect. For $30, you are getting extremely light single player and casual content, pretty unreliable server based rollback netcode, only 12 playable characters (soon to be 13!), and an extremely unoptimized experience from the menus to the various performance issues on some stages. Despite all that, I still love this game to death and consider it the modern pinnacle of the platfighter genre. I have been playing Wrastor since launch so believe me when I say this game is still fun as hell even though my character was shot out back. One of my favorite aspects is the generous buffer and hitfalling mechanics let anybody pull off wicked combos and feel like mang0 or Mew2King in grand finals. Aether Studios has such a unique and cool approach to character design that has remained unmatched amongst platfighters. All the character matchups are super interesting and engaging to me, and it makes each new major tournaament a learning experience for me as it's possible we all get to see top level play of a matchup we've never seen before. Some final notes/recommendations for devs (skip if youd like): Stages in this game are a mixed bag for me. Fire Capital is god awful, I haven't met a single person who likes that stage because of how stupidly big it is. It's not fun to play on and is a rather lazy solution for character's who need a big stage counterpick. The rest are okay to very good, some layouts are more interactive to move on than others. From the casual perspective I think we desperately need some casual stages or variants with hazards on, not just because they're awesome and fun to play on but for the longevity of the game. Doubles and FFA are quite stale right now and that would really help bring interest back and have something new for casual players. Ranked is decent. I really hate best of 3 format and I would love if there were some alternative like Best of 5 queueing, but I know that comes with a lot of logistical issues. In terms of content distribution, more platforms, taunts and death effects. It's insane we have a whole tab in the buck shop for one wrastor taunt. Obviously they are by far the more expensive and time consuming pieces of content to produce, but we really want them! I doubt anybody would mind skipping the mid month skin for a batch of couple of platforms, death effects and taunts. 9/10 game, if you're tired of smash this is for you
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Frequently Asked Questions
Rivals of Aether II is currently priced at 24.99€ on Steam.
Rivals of Aether II is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 24.99€ on Steam.
Rivals of Aether II received 5,963 positive votes out of a total of 7,294 achieving a rating of 7.96.
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Rivals of Aether II was developed by Aether Studios and published by Aether Studios and offbrand games.
Rivals of Aether II is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Rivals of Aether II is not playable on MacOS.
Rivals of Aether II is not playable on Linux.
Rivals of Aether II is a multi-player game.
Rivals of Aether II features PvP mode where you can test your skills against other players.
Rivals of Aether II does not currently offer any DLC.
Rivals of Aether II does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Rivals of Aether II supports Remote Play Together. Discover more about Steam Remote Play.
Rivals of Aether II is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Rivals of Aether II.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 14 March 2026 00:48 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 08 March 2026 08:54 |
| Steam price | 15 March 2026 04:49 |
| Steam reviews | 14 March 2026 21:51 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Rivals of Aether II, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Rivals of Aether II
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Rivals of Aether II concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Rivals of Aether II compatibility
Game modes
Multiplayer
Features
Online players
503
Developer
Aether Studios
Publisher
Aether Studios,
offbrand games
Release
23 Oct 2024
Platforms
Remote Play