Aether Studios’ 3D follow-up to Rivals of Aether was teased on April 1st via Twitch. (Image by Aether Studios)
The makers of the hit indie game Rivals of Aether announced on Monday that they have opened a new studio in Seattle to continue working on their next game.
Aether Studios is building on its first project, a new, as-yet-unnamed fighting game with 3D graphics that is located in the same universe as Rivals of Aether. It is also planned to serve as a “home forward” for future work in the Aether Universe, which includes a series of comics. The Aether games currently on the market will be released, at least for the time being, through Dan Fornace’s self-titled LLC.
The original game, Rivals of Aether, was released on Windows and Xbox One in 2017. It is billed as a “platform fighter” and belongs to the same genre as Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros .. It was developed by and for fans of this game series. The original creator of Rivals, Fornace, worked at Microsoft Studios between 2011 and 2014, where he was the lead designer on the first season of content for the 2013 revival of Killer Instinct.
Like Smash, characters win in rivals by knocking their opponents off the screen rather than fighting to a knockout. The occupation of the rivals consists of anthropomorphic animals, each of which possesses particular elemental powers as part of a major battle between warring civilizations on the planet Aether.
Rivals has a Pro League, the Rivals Championship Series and two spin-offs. Lovers of Aether started as the April Fools joke of 2019, where the characters are played as students in a dating simulator for all ages, and Creatures of Aether, a card game for mobile devices that was released last September.
Aether Studios is here! Our goal is to create the best new fighting game franchise.
Further information: https://t.co/gGkJWVOQ0m
– Aether Studios (@StudiosofAether) April 12, 2021
With the establishment of Aether Studios, this marks the official step to turn the world of Aether into a full-blown multimedia franchise, also because many of the most popular fighting games on the market today all draw on universes with at least 20 years of lore behind them. There’s a lot of cultural dynamism building up behind something like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, and Aether wants to capitalize on that.
“We want to build amazing fighting games,” the company wrote in its official announcement, “and we also want people to take care of our list of characters.” Our other games and stories give us the opportunity to make our characters stand out. “
Aether Studios is currently hiring people to work on its 3D fighting game, including artists, animators, and programmers familiar with Unreal Engine 4.