“The future needs to be that broader representation is a given, not a nice-to-have.”
Have you spotted the Killmonger dreads?
They’re everywhere these days.
What started in Marvel’s Black Panther film is now ubiquitous in gaming.
And these dreads are not just on the heads of Miles Morales or Tekken’s Eddy Gordo.
They’re in character creators too.
The style began as fashion but has quickly become a stereotype.
Black players have noticed.
When developers get this stuff right, players can see themselves in a video game and feel fully immersed.
But when representation is poor or lacking, it can be a disaster.
From a single hairstyle grew broader questions about character creators: Why are they so hard to get right?
What are the forces that shape their development, and how are these forces changing?
And what might the ultimate character creator look like?
Character creator pitfalls
Adding a character creator to a game comes with huge risk.
Get it wrong and at best your game becomes a meme; at worst it can alienate a community.
TakeMass Effect: Andromedaas an example.
Or maybe everyone just ends up looking bizarre.
That’s bad news for the game, certainly.
Examples of this are not hard to find either.
Too often Black skin tones and authentic hairstyles are presented as a handful of extras outside of default whiteness.
That was the case in Cyberpunk 2077.
Not only is it impossible to be non-binary, a character’s trans identity relates solely to their genitalia.
So how do you get it right?
The first character creators, then, were made from paper and pencils.
In that context, a custom character creator is essential."
Character creators can allow players to explore different identities too.
How can I relate to it even an infinitesimal amount more?
That allows me greater empathy with humanity overall."
Through my research, it became clear that, fundamentally, character creators act as a two-way mirror.
Dig deeper and you might identify the political ideologies and technical limitations the team has worked within.
So let’s venture to understand some of these limiting factors.
We wanted to avoid the need to introduce unnecessarily complex rules to handle this."
Sometimes, choices have a knock-on effect on other areas - for better or worse.
Take Cyberpunk 2077, for example.
Yet there are still limitations to the creation tool.
This decision was made to prioritise a different form of customisation: the garment system.
Fashion is key for players to express themselves as V throughout Cyberpunk 2077’s world.
“Everything together gives you the full variation of possibilities, and this was our goal.”
As an immersive, voiced RPG, Cyberpunk 2077 has thousands of lines of dialogue.
As such, the character creator ties pronouns to vocal choice with only two options.
The character creator in Cyberpunk 2077 is deeply shaped by the priorities of the developer, then.
And it’s by no means alone.
Diablo 4 is another blockbuster RPG that similarly does not allow players to alter body shape.
Here, though, as a fast-paced action game, it came down to accessibility.
Fixing classes to body shapes allows for the creation of strong silhouettes, in other words.
“That also dovetails into the player fantasy of the classes, it all is very symbiotic.”
But what if your main limitation is actually money?
Indie games frequently work within tighter budgets in ways that impact game design.
Perhaps the game will be in 2D rather than 3D, or won’t be voiced.
In turn, these decisions shape the character creator too.
“You also have to stand out in the space.”
Picking your battles sounds good.
But even simplifying things can be complex in video games.
Yet these are entirely hand drawn, and every permutation adds to both representation and workload.
In fact, it can be the opposite.
Erin Ellis, localisation programme manager at Amazon Games for Lost Ark, grounds it all in personal experience.
“I grew up as a big nerd who wanted to get into nerdy things like games.
“We did what we should have done.”
This gradual evolution in the scope of character creators is even more apparent in the annual WWE 2K series.
Developer Visual Concepts can iterate even further with its character creator with each new game.
And then you could adjust the palette.
But that really doesnt capture the subtleties [of skin tone].
You get those subtleties down to freckles and imperfections and everything of that sort.”
A further benefit of body scanning is that player-created characters now look closer to the real life wrestler characters.
So why is it that in some areas indie developers are leading the charge on diversity?
Coats, like Ellis, believes it helps broaden the audience of an indie game.
“Word of mouth is still the most effective marketing.
Why wouldn’t you do that?”
Moreover, small indie teams can be agile.
“We don’t have to go through approvals,” Coats continues.
“We don’t have to get legal to sign off on something.
Back when I was in AAA, it felt like you always had to get permission from someone.
It’s also difficult to branch out of the perceived default of straight white cisgendered male characters.
What’s the reason behind it?'.
They can just be.”
He concludes: “I think there’s a responsibility for indies to keep exploring this stuff.
“So you get studios which have one but not the other,” he says.
Diversity is therefore at the heart of both games - and their character creators.
And it pays off.
This kind of option is rarely included in high-budget games, though there are some exceptions.
Once again, the goal is: no limits.”
Of course, with this being a text-based game without voiceover, the team could experiment with pronoun options.
There are limitations when you’re fully voicing a game.
“Implementing it was really easy,” said Gagne.
Again, the text-based limitation allowed for this innovation.
“These are just variables.
We’re just making a video game, it’s ones and zeros.
you might customise your name.
We have player input for text.
Pronouns are just text, let’s just include a custom pronoun editor.
And the end result is that there will be a commercially released game that has a custom pronoun editor.
This is how they did it, we can do it too.”
All the developers I interviewed were passionate about including authentic Black characteristics.
One outstanding example, however, is Lost Ark.
The Amazon Games-published MMORPG was originally developed by Korean studio Smilegate RPG and was already hugely successful.
Amazon Games didn’t have that luxury with Lost Ark.
Instead, the team collaborated with Smilegate RPG with new suggestions.
“And we got some great options for all characters, not just brown ones.”
Despite these success stories, there’s one area of representation that all-too-often is lacking entirely: disability.
These are purely cosmetic options for representation.
Gagne explains to me why true disability representation is so difficult to achieve.
you should probably be able to account for a character that’s missing a limb.
It’s absolutely a challenge, I’m not going to deny that.
But I think that is the next level that a developer can reach because it’s a challenge."
Quality is more important".
What’s imperative is maintaining a feeling of authenticity both for the player and for the game world.
As an example, look at Street Fighter 6.
“What counts as a ‘wild’ character varies a lot depending on the player,” says Nakayama.
“But giving players a high degree of freedom was always our priority.”
The same is true for wrestling, of course.
“And we want to allow people to do that.”
Other developers are stricter with what they allow players to achieve, focusing more on artistic integrity.
Similarly, Diablo 4 has a particular artistic vision that defines both the world and the character creator.
“Sanctuary definitely has a style,” says McCrory.
What’s the future of character creation?
Developers continue to innovate, though.
Again, as Street Fighter 6’s Nakayama points out, moderation is key.
Beyond innovative technology, though, the real future of character creation is one of diversity and representation.
It’s not about simply adding more options, but making sure those options are authentic.
I’m talking the option to freely add stamps for scars, freckles, skin conditions over the body.
She also has a more philosophical take on diversity.
And when a character creator still doesn’t meet the standards of its audience?
This is where modders step in.
“I started making custom content because there was a lack of representation,” she tells me.
And I wasn’t able to do that due to the lack of assets available."
What’s more remarkable is that Udogaranya is completely self-taught in the Blender software she uses.
And there are benefits to this approach.
She suggests game designers need to really study the intricacies of non-white cultures.
It’s also transcended the games industry and moved into the realm of pure art.
Recently, her Sims work was exhibited in a gallery in Italy.
There is value in precision and study and careful thought.
It certainly beats repeating the same old hairstyles.
So what might the ultimate character creator look like?
I see now it’s one that serves player and game alike.
Creating a wealth of options isn’t necessarily difficult, then.
Allowing players to authentically be part of a game world is the real challenge.
