If you’re a Smash Bros. Style Platform Fighters fan, you’ve probably heard of Rivals of Aether, a Melee-inspired game with a ton of content and a decently sizeable competitive scene for an indie game.
A long while back, they announced Rivals 2, but it seems they were a bit over-ambitious and launched a Kickstarter to get enough money to finish it.
This also came alongside a trailer featuring a bunch of YouTubers and competitive smash players like Alpharad, VoiD, and the game’s creator, Dan Fornace, talking about the game.
This trailer also announced many features they plan to add, alongside the Kickstarter detailing quite a few more if they meet some stretch goals.
What Features will Rivals 2 have?
At launch, even if they’d only met the bare minimum stretch goal, Rivals 2 would still be launching in 2024 with six characters, servers with rollback-based netcode, a bunch of skins with even more released as the game goes on, and a promise for a Story Mode similar to Subspace Emissary, written by IDW Sonic the Hedgehog Comics writer Ian Flynn.
However, within 24 hours, they’d already garnered $500,000, well above the 200k minimum necessary to finish the game on time.
With each massive milestone comes a new stretch goal and a new batch of content we’ll probably see coming to Rivals 2 as soon as it launches in 2024. Here’s each stretch goal they’ve promised.
- At $200k, the game would have its minimum met, being able to launch in 2024.
- At $300k, the launch roster increases to 7 characters.
- At $400k, a tournament will be held at Genesis X before Rivals 2’s release.
- At $500k, the launch roster again increases to 8 characters.
- At $650k, the launch roster becomes nine characters.
- At $800k, you’ll get one free skin at launch.
- At $1M, the launch roster gets increased to 10 characters.
- At $1.5M, ranked mode will be available from launch.
- At $2M, character tutorials will be available at launch.
- At $2.5M, arcade mode will be available at launch.
- At $3M, chapter one of the story mode will be available at launch.
- At $4M, they’ll un-cancel Rivals Direct 6 for the funny.
Why Rivals 2 Went With a Kickstarter
This list of stretch goals has understandably called a few things into question, and just like when Yacht Club revealed a Kickstarter for their new game, many people are confused as to why they even need to bother with getting this much funding after making an already incredibly successful game. Some stretch goals feel ridiculous, but at least there is a reason.
Simply put, the Rivals team had been looking for a proper publisher for a long while, never found one, but didn’t want to compromise their vision for a fully 3D platform fighter that could compete with Smash on quality and content.
Some stretch goals (namely tutorials, ranked mode, and one free skin on launch) feel weird, but sometimes, locking these things behind stretch goals is just how you get funding.
Nevertheless, we’re practically guaranteed that Rivals 2 will drop in 2024 if nothing goes wrong. And with the massive amount of money they’ve already received, this Kickstarter will probably hit well over a million before the month of its runtime is over, so you can expect a ton of content when the game drops.
Further Reading
If you’d like to hear more about Rivals 2 or some of your other favorite indies, stick around for more.
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