Workshop and its Effects on Character Release#853

Bottom Line, Up Front:
I feel as if the release of the character workshop will greatly reduce the hype for character releases of returning Rivals from Rivals of Aether 1.
If community made workshop creations of Rivlas who will be returning are made, played, and loved, and the Aether studio official release is different/worse/not received as well, this will decrease the awe factor of them—and potential earnings of Rivals of Aether 2.

Suggestion:
Release all Rivals of Aether 1 Fighters alongside the workshop.

Reasoning:
The Rivals of Aether’s 1 character workshop was such an amazing addition to the game. With it came the creativity and dedication of the community to create things they enjoyed and were interested in. Modders made whichever character they wanted to play, whether it be the crossover they wanted, an original idea, or something goofy/fun. The workshop undoubtably brought thousands of characters to ROA 1. People have a passion for creating the things they love. Rivals of Aether 2 won’t be any different. One major difference however is that as opposed to the first game, there are returning characters that have not been released coming from a previous game in the series. Both fortunately and unfortunately, Rivlas of Aether 2 has characters missing from the first game, that are quite beloved. ROA 2 does, as of the time of writing this, not have all of the first games roster added officially to the game—and will also likely not have had released all returning Rivals of Aether 1 characters: Mollo, Hodan, Pomme, Eliana, and Sylvanos during 2026-2027
In recent dev streams and discourse about 2026 and 2027, if the four character release schedule is adhered to, and 2027 is to have the character release schedule slowing down, the amount of returning characters will not necessarily catch up with the release of workshop (source:https://www.youtube.com/live/CLFn0W6VXjM?si=JqqDc3meJCU1KvaP). It is definitely not impossible to release the next 3 characters and first 2 of 2027 all as returning characters but it is highly unlikely.
With all of this said, as soon as the workshop is released dependent on development time, community sentiment, and motivation, many of the ROA 1 characters WILL be ported from 2D to 3D (Source: https://x.com/RealSushiiZ/status/1903657678208934311). Modders are already motivated enough to hard code characters they want into the game before the release of the workshop tools. With the release of the official Rivals 2 workshop, though, the tools to create will make development easier than it is now–thus the inevitable return of beloved ROA 1 characters.

Questions:

• If the community beats Aether Studios to the punch, will the development team be “taking notes” per se from the workshop creations and tuning them like Rivals of Aether 1’s workshop official releases? (Is there a possible outcry about plagiarism?)
• Will the team essentially release characters with their vision regardless of community made ports of ROA 1 characters? (Even if they are already beloved up to the time of the official ROA 2 release?)
• Are the factors of a non studio developers generating hype for a returning character a concern for the hype/word-of-mouth/exposure of ROA 2? (Will their trailers of modded workshop ports possible lower the search engine optimization/exposure of official release videos of official content?
• Are there already plans to mitigate this risk?
• How will this effect the returning player hype for official releases? (Purchasing new skins of official characters on release will likely be reduced. If fan made versions of the characters already got people to come back and play the game before the official + plus official release in-game store content, this might take a hit on the players who return for the real deal)

Attached are photos of:

• the Rivals of Aether 1 Cast
• the 2026 and Beyond Roadmap for Rivals of Aether 2
• the YouTube link for the developer live stream where Dan mentions the possibility and likelihood that the character release schedule is slowed down to make room for console launch and console support
• a twitter link showcasing a modder’s creation of one of a beloved ROA 1 fighter

Please share your comments below, I look forward to reading all of them. I am excited to see the many great people of this community (Aether Studio’s developers included!) share their insightful opinions and facts about this topic. Thanks.

• Rytre

That’s not possible. Workshop is due in a few months and has already began closed testing.
Ideally though the devs will make versions that are way higher quality and have better movesets that make them feel well designed, so I am sure the hype will be there still.

We don’t even have Fleet made in RoA1 idk why people think someone will make Sylvanos in RoA2

With all due respect, I think you’re grossly underestimating the amount of work it would need to get the remainder of the Rivals 1 into the game. If the team were to take your suggestion they’d need to push workshop back for at least another 2 year at a minimum. Assuming that every character from this point onward is a returner and they continue at the rate they’re going (both of which are unlikely) we’re still looking at early 2027 at the soonest. The devs likely had a reason to move workshop up their list of priorities and moving it back that far may have harmful ramifications on the studio’s ability to continue work on the game.

Furthermore I think you’re underestimating people’s willingness to work on a character who they know will come. I have no doubt that there are talented artists and programmers in the workshop scene but the amount of work it would take to recreate a character like Elliana or Sylvanos faithfully in 3D would be way more work than one or two people could reasonably manage. Why would anyone put in the work when at any moment that work would be undermined by the official version being revealed? It’s not like these characters could be used in competitive play either since they’re workshop and not balanced against the rest of the cast. I feel that creators are more likely to focus on making meme characters and their own original creations rather than put the time into bringing their favs from Rivals 1 into the fold. We’ve seen this playout with R1 Workshop where at of writing this reply, no one has created workshop version of Fleet, Lox or any of the extended cast from the lore. I get where you worry will come from but I personally don’t think it’s going to shake out the way you think it will.

Workshop is a priority becuase it’s a major selling point to casuals.

Pushing it back until the other veterans get in is a horrible idea. At that point, implementing the remaining cast would take so long that they’d run the risk of running out of funds and not being able to do workshop at all.

A lot of people got into Rivals because of workshop. I don’t think having an unofficial Sylvanos before the real deal is as big an issue you percive it to be, and I certainly don’t think most people would care. I wouldn’t.

I’m not a game developer, but I have experience in marketing.. So my experience with development is nonexistent.

I made a suggestion because this is a suggestion board, it is only a suggestion and not the be-all-end-all solution for my query.

I think a lot of people are assuming I mean to postpone workshop. I never said postpone it, developers in Dev Ticket livestreams (even back in the beta) have already said most of the work for a lot of returning fighters is already completed.
Eliana and Sylvanos being examples that we know haven’t had any luck transferring into 3D, so those are less concrete as other characters.
If you read the closing questions to open the discussion, you’d see that there are plenty of questions about other possible solutions as well.

I believe assuming what people think (and not asking for clarification) is very poor discussion edicate, so there is also that.

Another thing to point out is that saying Loxodont and Fleet aren’t in ROA 1’s workshop is missing the point—those characters are already playable in ROA 2. This post is about returning Rivals.

“Most of the work for a lot of returning fighters is already completed.”
I think this is incorrect, you might need a source on that.

And the point those people are making by mentioning Lox and Fleet in RoA1 is that just because the tools exist to recreate fighters doesn’t mean it will happen.
It takes a lot of effort that fans likely wouldn’t put in only to make a likely inferior version to whatever ends up being officially made, especially in 3D because less people know how to model than animate sprites.
In other words, this seems like increeeedibly unlikely to be an issue.

Devs do take notes from fan characters if you are curious though.
Dan has said it puts him in a weird spot because he loves fans making fighters and is eager to get workshop out but definitely has thought and worried about fans porting fighters before him and accidentally having similar changes made or people seeing the fan versions and liking them more, but also just that he’s gonna cross that road when he gets there and hopefully their versions will all be way higher quality.
(Take this with a grain of salt as it’s all based on memory of one of the recent streams where he discussed workshop)

They should keep Eliana in r1 regardless