The game, Rivals of Aether, is finally getting the one thing people have always wanted in a fighting game: The ability to add original characters to the game’s roster. For those who have no idea what Rivals of Aether is, allow me to give you a quick recap: Rivals of Aether is Super Smash Bros… if it featured all original animal-based characters.
This game is highly competitive and full of training tools. It is, in my opinion, the best indie fighting game to come out in years. Beyond the standard versus modes there is a story mode and Abyss mode. Story mode is self explanatory. Abyss mode has you facing waves of shadowy fighters alone or with a friend to obtain a high score.
That said, Rivals of Aether is getting Steam Workshop support. This will allow fans of the game to create original characters and use them in the game. There is no word whether any of these characters will ever make it into the game. Dan Fornace, one of the guys behind the game, replied to a question on Twitter about just that and he genuinely seemed open to the idea.
We’re not sure yet. That would be super cool. It would be nice to talk to people from their team or someone else who has done it to see how they figured that out logistically.
— Dan Fornace @ Smash Con (@danfornace) August 9, 2019
The Binding of Issac team curated fan made designs and put them into their game. Dan said he would be open to talking to the Binding of Issac developers to see how they accomplished that. Tyrone Rodriguez, the man behind Binding of Issac, chimed in he would love to help Dan out in this regard.
What started out as a neat idea to let fans play original characters in Rivals of Aether may have become so much more in a short span of time. Obviously, there is a lot of behind the scene things that need to be done before any original characters could be added to the game officially but it looks like it might be a real possibility at this point. I only hope the Rivals of Aether team keep game balance in mind when/if they adopt original characters into their franchise. I hate games that have mechanics, characters, cards, or whatever in them only to have them banned in tournaments.
