Round One

"Round One" is the twenty-ninth episode of RWBY and the first episode of Volume 3. It premiered for Rooster Teeth Sponsors on October 24th, 2015 and was made public the next day.

Summary
Ruby Rose stands at her mother's gravestone at the Cliffside Altar. She talks to her about her father, Taiyang Xiao Long; her team at Beacon; her new friends and teachers; and the events of the previous two semesters. She then joins her father, who drops her off at Vale before embarking on a mission.

Back in Vale, the Vytal Festival combat tournament is already well under way. Team RWBY's first match is with Team ABRN of Haven Academy, which is spectated by thousands of people at the enormous floating stadium, Amity Colosseum, and broadcast to many more people from all around Remnant.

Professor Peter Port and Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck, the tournament announcers, explain the rules of the tournament: There are three rounds in the tournament, the first being a 4-on-4 team round. The winners of the team round may select two of their team to fight in the 2-on-2 doubles round, the victors of which may choose one representative to fight in the final 1-on-1 round. Contenders are knocked out of the battle by falling below a certain Aura threshold or by being thrown out of the fighting arena.

After winning their match against Team ABRN, Team RWBY goes to the Vytal Festival fairgrounds to eat. There they meet their "friend" Emerald Sustrai, who is also participating in the tournament alongside Mercury Black, Cinder Fall and an undercover Neopolitan.

Emerald and Team RWBY exchange an apparently amicable conversation, and it is revealed that Weiss Schnee and Yang Xiao Long are the pair selected from Team RWBY to enter the doubles round, whilst Emerald and Mercury will continue for their team. Emerald bids them farewell and meets up with Mercury. Emerald reveals her intense distaste for Team RWBY's positivity, and it is revealed she only talked to them under orders to find out who will take part in the next match.

As Team RWBY goes to get a meal, Weiss rejects a phone call from her father. When she then attempts to pay for the meal at the Shopkeep's noodle stall, her credit card is declined, much to her surprise. Fortunately, JNPR arrives and Pyrrha Nikos offers to pay instead. The two teams share a satisfying meal together before Team JNPR is called away for their match with Team BRNZ of Shade Academy. Team RWBY cheers on their friends, while Cinder, Mercury and Emerald watch.

Trivia

 * Shortly after the episode was released for Sponsors, traffic to the Rooster Teeth website was so high that 40 servers crashed.
 * V3E01 Monty Oum.png signature in the sunset]]The flock of birds that fly in front of the sun after Ruby leaves Summer's grave forms the signature of series creator Monty Oum, who passed away on February 1st, 2015.
 * During the fairgrounds scene, multiple characters make brief non-speaking cameos, among them Yatsuhashi Daichi, Fox Alistair and Sky Lark. May Zedong from Team BRNZ also makes an early appearance at the fairground before appearing with the rest of her team at the end of the episode.
 * Mercury sniffing a boot was construed by Emerald as socially awkward. However, it is likely that Mercury was checking the quality of the boots that were for sale. Good quality leather has a distinctive smell, while bad quality leather has a tendency to stink.
 * This was the first episode to feature the work of animator Dillon Gu. The fight scene was a collaboration between Dillon and veteran animator Shane Newville. Shane revealed which parts were animated by whom on his Twitter: Shane animated the segments from 2:45-2:59, 4:29-4:54, 5:16-5:30, 5:55-6:52 and 7:40-8:09; Dillon animated the segments from 4:54-5:16, 5:37-5:55, 6:52-7:40; and both animated 5:30-5:37.
 * Work-in-progress footage of the RWBY vs. ABRN match was shown during RTX 2015 at the RWBY panel. The panel footage was incomplete and much rougher, but still followed the overall outline of the battle. The work-in-progress version of the battle used "We Will Rock You" by British rock band Queen for the first half of the battle, and the second opening theme of the anime Gokukoku no Brynhildr for the second half. These were both replaced by "It's My Turn" in the final version.
 * The first part of the battle, up to the point where Ruby is saved from Bolin by Weiss, was also released as a special teaser on October 8th, 2015 on Nerdist.com. There were some subtle differences between this and the final episode version: Ruby's line after she immobilizes Nadir is "Got your back, sis!" in the preview version, this was changed to "Got your back!" in the episode version.
 * This episode marks the first time that Neath Oum takes over voicing Lie Ren after his brother Monty Oum, the previous voice actor, passed away.
 * It's revealed that Nora and Ren are orphans and homeless (outside of Beacon).
 * Weiss's credit card number is revealed to be 125 347 674 908 236.