Yo! It's been a while since I posted on here... I have a request for anybody who'd like to contribute

I'm writing an opinion piece/editorial article for a video on Video Games with forms of Character Creation or Character Customization, and I'm looking for other people's opinions on some of their favorites.

This can be any type of game, of course. Be it games that mainly affects the player character (Mass Effect), or games that focus heavily on creation in a broader sense (The Sims). Hell, it can also be a game that doesn't necessarily need it, but it's still fun to make your own character for the fun of it (WWE/THPS)

Conversely, I'm also looking for some more examples of games that either have bad or unnecessary character creation features. This could be opinion based of course. For example, I've heard some people mention that the Character Creation portion of Dark Souls games feel a bit unnecessary other than the gender selection, due to the fact that players generally cover their characters in armor (this is just an example of course)

Lastly, I'm looking for examples of games that (in your opinion, of course) could benefit from an inclusion of some form of Character Creation or Customization. Pokémon X & Y, for example, granted players the ability to buy clothing and change their hairstyles (Similar to Animal Crossing), a feature that no other Pokémon games had before.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

PS: I've also added a poll to more or less gauge how often members of the AWX Community spend time on creating or customizing characters. It all can depend on the game of course.

@ChickenSqueeze - Given that aquiring and donning new armour or gear is the main drive in so many games that give you customization options, I think a lot of games could do with simplifying things to gender, body shape, a few generic face presets and hair/beards. Fallout 4 had a extensive character creation tool that meant nothing after an hour.

Favourite character creation tool in recent memory is from the 2D Souls-ish title "Salt and Sanctuary". Aside form the usual gender and skin tone options, body shape, face and hair were represented by maybe two dozen choices that were each visually distinct from one another. Sliders with dozens of notches or percentages that make only minor changes feel pointless in comparison.

Mass Effect's character creation was awesome right up to it bollocked up the import into Mass Effect 3. Took me hours to get my FemShep 95%ish right.

Saint's Row is an example of the right customization options for the right kind of game. Perfection.

You just need a [censored] size option for customization

Black Desert Online has one of the best I've ever seen. WOW!

I choose race, class, gender and the most time i really spend on character creation is just choosing a hairstyle. Usually I just go with the default choices for the first three choices above. I don't have the patience to sit through in depth customisation of any sort.

Lurch said ...

@ChickenSqueeze - Given that aquiring and donning new armour or gear is the main drive in so many games that give you customization options, I think a lot of games could do with simplifying things to gender, body shape, a few generic face presets and hair/beards. Fallout 4 had a extensive character creation tool that meant nothing after an hour.

I totally agree. Certain games seem to come with too many options to customize your character when you're probably going to cover him/her up anyway. This coming from a person who absolutely loves creating characters in detail.
Do you think that some games would be better off if they completely took out character creation/customization?

Lurch said ...

Favourite character creation tool in recent memory is from the 2D Souls-ish title "Salt and Sanctuary". Aside form the usual gender and skin tone options, body shape, face and hair were represented by maybe two dozen choices that were each visually distinct from one another. Sliders with dozens of notches or percentages that make only minor changes feel pointless in comparison.

This is actually why I made so many options in the poll. When talking about creating characters, there are people who really like making minute changes with sliders and percentages, and some who don't. Nothing wrong with either of course. Salt and Sanctuary's character creation does look very fleshed out though. It kind of reminds me of a very good mixture between Dark Souls and Stardew Valley's Character Creator.

Scottie said ...

Saint's Row is an example of the right customization options for the right kind of game. Perfection.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. The best way I can describe Saint's Row is "GTA but with creative elements from The Sims". And I absolutely love it.
Do you think there should be more games with as many creation/customization options as Saint's Row?

DarkPrince said ...

You just need a [censored] size option for customization

Don't you mean "personality"?
The English version of Xenoblade Chronicles X missed out on this.

BlazenTech said ...

Black Desert Online has one of the best I've ever seen. WOW!

I know right? It looks absolutely beautiful! You can even get the legitimate Character Creator tool separately... if you're in the right countries.

DEATHGIGAS said ...

I choose race, class, gender and the most time i really spend on character creation is just choosing a hairstyle. Usually I just go with the default choices for the first three choices above. I don't have the patience to sit through in depth customisation of any sort.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. In fact, that's probably why some games give you multiple choices to choose from a variety of default characters if you don't want to spend a lot of time creating a character.
I'd like to hear your opinion on something though. Do you ever feel like you would enjoy a game more if a company that usually gives you lots of options in their games took them out for their next game? An example I can think of off the top of my head would be Saint's Row: Gat out of Hell.


Thanks so much for the feedback so far, guys. I really appreciate it

@Chicken - Well I was seriously underwhelmed by Dragon Age Inquisition's paltry offering, that could have done with more options. I like the ability to select a different voice too.

I'm all for it, there can be defaults for those not interested.

Scottie said ...

@Chicken - Well I was seriously underwhelmed by Dragon Age Inquisition's paltry offering, that could have done with more options. I like the ability to select a different voice too.

I'm all for it, there can be defaults for those not interested.

I get what you mean. My biggest pet-peeve in any game is a lackluster character creator.

I've always thought a proper RPG where you can customize/create all of your party members (visually, anyway) would be a dream come true. Though it might sound like a nightmare for some people

I usually spend a fair amount of time customising my character if there is an option for this. It’s mostly just for the fun of it. Like a creative outlet of sorts. I find it highly annoying when it doesn’t matter in the end when your face is covered by armour. Similar I find it slightly annoying when race choice adds nothing to story or gameplay. Elder Scrolls is a good example of how race choice matters. Destiny is the opposite. Aside from aesthetic preference (which you don’t see under all that armour) there is no reason to choose one race over the other.

The only time I didn’t customise was on Mass Effect mainly because for me the default character was very much apart of the brand (and therefor experienc) and just didn’t feel right to change it.

As a side note I personally don’t always choose a character with my same gender. It could be because back in the day there were not many playable female characters, but I find I usually prefer to play a male character. Its also nice to have a character of the opposite sex always on screen Other times I just think what gender would suit the character I want to play more. Like in World of Warcraft my main was a male Tauren shaman just because I thought a male character suited that race/class more then a female one. My other characters on WoW seem to have ended up being split evenly over the 2 genders.

I realise my next comment might get slapped with the “feminazi” label by some people, but I found that playing a female character in an mmo attracted unwanted attention (eg. whispers of “are you a girl?” or “What is your age? Where do you live?” if I replied yes) which was also part of the reason I enjoyed playing a male character more. It does seem that things in this regard have improved over the last decade and players generally understand that women play games online to play them and not to get hit on.

I pity all and sundry who didn't play ME with FemShep - Jennifer Hale is in a whole different league to the male voice-over actor.

@Scottie Well I might just play the trilogy again on ps3 before Andromeda. Then I will use Femshep for sure Will likely not customise at all except for class ofc

This is FemsShep otherwise it's a reaper husk

Corrosive said ...

I usually spend a fair amount of time customising my character if there is an option for this. It’s mostly just for the fun of it. Like a creative outlet of sorts. I find it highly annoying when it doesn’t matter in the end when your face is covered by armour. Similar I find it slightly annoying when race choice adds nothing to story or gameplay. Elder Scrolls is a good example of how race choice matters. Destiny is the opposite. Aside from aesthetic preference (which you don’t see under all that armour) there is no reason to choose one race over the other.

I totally get the "creative outlet" part. I'm one of those people who spends quite a lot of time creating characters. It took me hours to decide if I was going to choose a boy or a girl when I got Pokémon X&Y

I'm starting to realize that it's becoming a trend in games like Destiny or Dark Souls. Honestly I wasn't even aware that Destiny had a character creation feature until a few days ago when I started my research. Hearing it has practically no impact on the game is actually a big reason why I probably won't consider playing it in my free time.

Conversely, I'm actually quite eager to play Skyrim for research & footage now that you mentioned that it actually does have some impact.

Corrosive said ...

The only time I didn’t customise was on Mass Effect mainly because for me the default character was very much apart of the brand (and therefor experienc) and just didn’t feel right to change it.

That's actually quite a good point I'll be taking note of. I don't even play Mass Effect (I will be for a part of this video though) but even I know what the default Commander Shepard looks like.

Corrosive said ...

As a side note I personally don’t always choose a character with my same gender. It could be because back in the day there were not many playable female characters, but I find I usually prefer to play a male character. Its also nice to have a character of the opposite sex always on screen Other times I just think what gender would suit the character I want to play more. Like in World of Warcraft my main was a male Tauren shaman just because I thought a male character suited that race/class more then a female one. My other characters on WoW seem to have ended up being split evenly over the 2 genders.

I'm also in that boat. I almost always choose a female character, but mainly because I almost always feel the male clothes/items look a bit boring for the most part. I won't deny that what you said about having the opposite gender on screen is nice though.

And though I do agree that some races/classes do gravitate toward specific genders at times, it's also possible to make more interesting characters by going against that. Like a very brutish Male Fairy, or maybe a very effeminate "cutesy" Orc

Corrosive said ...

I realise my next comment might get slapped with the “feminazi” label by some people, but I found that playing a female character in an mmo attracted unwanted attention (eg. whispers of “are you a girl?” or “What is your age? Where do you live?” if I replied yes) which was also part of the reason I enjoyed playing a male character more. It does seem that things in this regard have improved over the last decade and players generally understand that women play games online to play them and not to get hit on.

I have almost zero experience when it comes to MMOs, but I have heard stories of friends or aquantances who use female characters being harassed by other players. Either before or after the other players find out they're guys. I can totally see why you'd prefer to play as a male character in that sense though, so zero judgement here. I'm definitely adding MMOs to games I need to expand my research on. I've only listed the "prettier" looking ones based on the character creation part alone.

and yet whose voice is this #justsaying

ChickenSqueeze said ...


I'm starting to realize that it's becoming a trend in games like Destiny or Dark Souls. Honestly I wasn't even aware that Destiny had a character creation feature until a few days ago when I started my research. Hearing it has practically no impact on the game is actually a big reason why I probably won't consider playing it in my free time.

Conversely, I'm actually quite eager to play Skyrim for research & footage now that you mentioned that it actually does have some impact.

The impact in Skyrim wasn't huge. You get a racial skill and as I recall there are some conversations with NPCs where they make a remark on sterotypes of your race. I can't recall if Oblivion was different. It would be awesome if race was more impactful like they don't allow an Orc in a human towns tavern or you need to be more charming to certain NPCs. That sort of system could be a little contriversal though as well as restricting if a player can't get access to content as easily as others. It would make for an engrossing RPG experience though.

I wonder if games would ever get to the point where the attractiveness of your character influences interactions. There are already computer algorithms that (apparently) can evaluate a persons attractiveness, but this is very subjective. It was a months bad there was that article that went viral about what different countries around the world see as attractive. So having an NPC act positively to the tall muscle men or blonde women and then negatively to a fat or scarred character might be just as controversial as race influencing these interactions.

Anyone know if any games take customisation to another level where it effects the interactions in the game or somethign like that?

Corrosive said ...

The impact in Skyrim wasn't huge. You get a racial skill and as I recall there are some conversations with NPCs where they make a remark on sterotypes of your race. I can't recall if Oblivion was different. It would be awesome if race was more impactful like they don't allow an Orc in a human towns tavern or you need to be more charming to certain NPCs. That sort of system could be a little contriversal though as well as restricting if a player can't get access to content as easily as others. It would make for an engrossing RPG experience though.

Still, a feature like that a very welcome addition to any game, even if it's just to flesh out the world a bit. I'm all for adding differences in story or gameplay depending on what type of character you choose, especially if the game's story is planned and written with that in mind.

Even going by just the race/class aspect, there can be advantages or disadvantages depending on the race you choose to sort of balance it all out. A human character might have free access to all human villages, but he/she will have a tough time gaining access to areas where Orcs live for example. So depending on the character you make, you're essentially picking which areas would be the "hard mode" in your game. So your character might need to do something in the hard-to-access areas to progress the story.

Corrosive said ...

I wonder if games would ever get to the point where the attractiveness of your character influences interactions. There are already computer algorithms that (apparently) can evaluate a persons attractiveness, but this is very subjective. It was a months bad there was that article that went viral about what different countries around the world see as attractive. So having an NPC act positively to the tall muscle men or blonde women and then negatively to a fat or scarred character might be just as controversial as race influencing these interactions.

Oh I'm sure there's a way to add that mechanic into a game. It's quite an intriguing idea. You can even have NPCs have differing tastes depending on your character's appearance. If your character is considered "handsome" to a certain NPC, they'll give you something that benefits you. Heck, certain NPCs can even be intimidated if they consider your character "too good looking"

I think in the end, mechanics like these can be controversial, but I'm pretty sure people would be inclined to be interested in it if that mechanic was marketed well. Racism and other prejudices are kind of hard to express in all kinds of media, but it can be groundbreaking if done right.

L.A. Noire is a good example of a game that has characters with strong prejudices in the story, and I feel it was well integrated without crossing the boundaries of seeming preachy or making it seem okay. A character having a prejudice doesn't define them, but it tells you enough about a character that you can keep in mind later in in the game. That said though, L.A. Noire isn't exactly a game with customization other than the main character wearing a few different suits.

Corrosive said ...

Anyone know if any games take customisation to another level where it effects the interactions in the game or somethign like that?

Ditto. I'd also like to know of any games with similar mechanics if anyone has any examples.