Character creation mechanic is dying.

[SpiralLegacy]

There is nothing I hate more than a preset character. If you aren't going to put the effort in to allow the player to make a unique character, then don't bother with character creation at all.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Not quite sure if Battlefront's character customization qualifies as character creation, but NVM.

It funny how you mention that The Division is your first Ubisoft game to have a character creator. It just higlights how far Ubisoft has fallen.

Another Tom Clancy game, Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, has one of the most in depth character creators outside of Korean MMOs.

 

[Silence]

Fallout 4 is like every single Bethesda game before it; Patiently adjust every single detail of the face and hair to get the perfect character, then 5 minutes in, put on a helmet that hides it all.

And, of course, you can't customize the body at all, even though that's at least 75% of your character.

So here's what I prefer: Having Presets with the option to go into detail (DS has that, for example), AND a full body slider. It does not have to be as advanced as Dragon's Dogma, but I would like to change height and build.

 

[Dragonbums]

Dying? Nah.

It's about the only way I can play a game that features a genuine black person from time to time.
You should stop playing games with garbage character creations. But the option isn't dying out. It's a matter of how much effort they put in to it.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

And, of course, you can't customize the body at all, even though that's at least 75% of your character.

On the PC, there's a body mod called CBBE that allows you to customize and tweak almost every aspect of the females body.

 

[Tilly]

This is the reason I hate almost all character creatiors, the only game it was genuinely good (and had a lot of options) is Xenoblade X.

Ironically the game the least needed one- and used it to just have an emotionless avatar husk of a main character.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

... I make my character Asians to reflect my own skin types...

Ha well at least you get representation lol

Try finding a game that gets and Indian/Caribbean skin tone right because apparently only Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, and African races are a thing in the minds of the people who make the character assets. Oh and it includes faces too.

OT

Eh, I usually go with a pre-made character if one is available. I've sent far too much time messing around with editors to care any more.

I don't think that it's fair to say that the feature is dying though, plenty of games have good ones, and a lot of games have bad ones. You just have to judge them on a game by game basis. It's just not something you can make a fair generational about.

 

[CritialGaming]

Black Desert Online's character creator system is pretty fucking nuts. There are people making Celebrity look alikes, and even other video game characters. I mean look at this Emma Watson. That takes a lot of fine tuning when you consider that every character starts with a Korean facial structure.

 

[Fat Hippo]

I can't comment on this until I compare Dark Souls III character creation with Bloodborne.

I didn't play Bloodborne, but if Dark Souls III lets you make decent looking characters, it will be the first in the Souls series. Of course, Demon's Souls was the worst by far, so they have been making some improvements since the first and very goofy Demon's Souls editor.

 

[happyninja42]

So i have recently started to play Tom Clancy's The Division, and I was baffled by lack of options when making my own guy. Usually when they give me option to do so, I make my character Asians to reflect my own skin types. But oh my god, all the Asian male models looked terrible. They are all slanted eye and no options to change eye types (I have bigger eyes than most Asians). So then I moved on to white male models, and while they looked bit better, the lack of making my own guy still was disappointing.

TO be fair on Ubisoft, this is the first game to allow character creation (at least for me), but damn, the least they could do is learn from Bethesda on what they did with Fallout and Elder Scroll games' character creation. You had the freedom to create a badass looking hero, or hilariously ugly looking field. Seriously, if you are going to have generic pre-made models with little options to change them, what the hell is the point of giving us the choice in first place?

Division is not the only game guilty of this crime. Dragon Age Inquisition (DAII did a better job, IMO), Destiny, Star Wars Battlefront EA, and other games had really bad character creation.

This is a trend that needs to stop

I think it's a bit of exaggeration to say "character creation is dying" because some game systems make a half assed attempt at it. Plenty of games have a widely varied creation system, and let you fiddle with your character to a ridiculous level of customization. Sure Ubisoft didn't bother much, but it's Ubisoft, are we really surprised that they did a half assed job? Considering everything else they've done?