RIVALS Updates & Patch Notes

🏆 Update 23 — September 18, 2026

An awards patch. RIVALS won Best Shooter Experience for the second year running and Best Studio for Nosniy Games at the Roblox Innovation Awards 2026, and the celebration was a week of every weapon being free plus two limited-time reward codes. It also reverted Update 22's Ranked ELO changes and gave the Wildcat the buff it needed.

If you only read three things

• ▸Every weapon was free to use in any duel for about seven days — the developers framed it as a chance to test the expensive Prime and Contraband guns before buying.
• ▸The Wildcat was buffed across the board: damage 9 → 10, magazine 24 → 30, reserve ammo 96 → 120, and damage dropoff now starts at 40 studs instead of 30.
• ▸Update 22's Ranked ELO changes were rolled back after the developers called changing it mid-season the wrong call. It is due to return at the start of the next season.

Awards & codes

• ·Won Best Shooter Experience at the Roblox Innovation Awards 2026 — the second year in a row RIVALS has taken that award.
• ·Won Best Studio for Nosniy Games.
• ·Two limited-time award codes were added: BACK2BACK (RIA26 Best Shooter charm) and NOSNIYGAMESONTOP (RIA26 Best Studio emote). No end date was announced, so redeem them early.

Weapons

• ·Wildcat buffed: damage 9 → 10, critical damage 12 → 13, magazine 24 → 30, reserve ammo 96 → 120, damage dropoff start 30 → 40 studs, dropoff end 90 → 100 studs.
• ·One full magazine of body shots went from 24 × 9 = 216 damage to 30 × 10 = 300 — a 39% increase between reloads.
• ·Reload animation touch-ups for the Wildcat and the Light Fifty skin; icon tweaks for the Plasma Wildcat and Enerkey skins.

Ranked

• ·Update 22's ELO formula changes were reverted. Update 22 had stopped treating players above 3,600 ELO as equals, which could pay +0 ELO for winning a lopsided match (with a Stomp charm as consolation).
• ·The revert covers the ELO formula only. Update 22's stricter Roblox account verification and region-locked matchmaking stayed.

Maps & modes

• ·New Experimental map: Gate, for 1v1 and 2v2. The wiki lists it as Easy difficulty, built by @ShadowTrojan.
• ·Subspace Tripmine can no longer be used in Arcade Servers.

Fixes & cosmetics

• ·Energy Rifle's tracer beam effect can now take wraps.
• ·Fixed Bonus Tasks staying stuck as completed for players who had completed none that day.
• ·Fixed a Warper glitch that let players get out of the Onyx map.
• ·Last year's charm was renamed from RIA25 Award to RIA25 Best Shooter.

😾 Update 22 — September 4, 2026

The Wildcat patch. RIVALS got its first new Standard weapon in a long while — and the first weapon in the game with realistic recoil — alongside a large pass on utility items, where almost every ability's equip cooldown was cut from 0.85–0.9 seconds to 0.5.

If you only read three things

• ▸New Standard primary: the Wildcat, 35 Keys, a fully automatic SMG that climbs while you fire and uses alternating quick/slow reloads.
• ▸Nine utility items had their equip cooldown cut to 0.5 seconds, which changes how fast you can react in a duel.
• ▸Ranked got an ELO formula rework, stricter Roblox account verification and region-locked matchmaking — the ELO part was reverted two weeks later in Update 23.

New weapon

• ·Wildcat added as a Standard primary at 35 Keys — unlockable with Keys earned in game, no Robux required.
• ·First RIVALS weapon with realistic recoil: the camera climbs while you hold fire, and the in-game tip tells you to pull downwards while shooting.
• ·Uses jungle-style magazines — two magazines taped together — so reloads alternate between a quick one (0.78s) and a long one (1.56s).
• ·Launch stats were damage 9 → 2.2 with dropoff from 30 to 90 studs and a 24/96 magazine, all improved in Update 23.

Utility cooldown pass

• ·Equip cooldown cut to 0.5s for Flashbang (0.85s), Freeze Ray (0.9s), Grappler (0.9s), Grenade (0.85s), Jump Pad (0.9s), Molotov (0.85s), Smoke Grenade (0.85s), Warpstone (0.85s) and Subspace Tripmine (0.9s).
• ·Freeze Ray: freeze duration 3s → 4s, slow 1s → 2.5s.
• ·Smoke Grenade now fully blinds on every graphics level.
• ·Subspace Tripmine direct hits crit for 150 damage.
• ·Distortion: max ammo 77 → 45.

Ranked & progression

• ·Ranked ELO gain and loss formula reworked; players above 3,600 ELO were no longer treated as equals (reverted in Update 23).
• ·Stricter Roblox account verification and improved region-locked matchmaking.
• ·Prize Wheels added.
• ·Daily and streak tasks reworked with login rewards attached, and the win-streak penalty was deleted.