Character Creator & Character Customization (Official Thread)

F'ing realistic hair options. Enough's enough Bio. Lego plastic hair doesn't cut it among 2016/17 AAA titles. That latest 4k trailer didn't exactly inspire that anything has changed in this regard.

Better noses for males. I hated the nose options in the previous ME games. I just never could make a decent looking male character cause of those damn Neanderthal noses. If they use a similar system to DAI it should be good.

Body slider (or at least a few different body types to choose from).

Finally, a SHOW IN CUTSCENE button that you can click to see what your character will look like from multiple angles in game cutscenes. I know this would save many people the trouble of starting over multiple times because the character they thought they'd gotten "just right" ended up looking wonky in the actual game.

Trouble with biotics is how godly some of it is. In ME1, my Shepard had all of the heavy hitting biotics unlocked by the time I got to Virmire, yet Saren was able to get within arm's reach without being flung off the platform with max throw, or Shepard not instantly charging into Kai Leng, because talk is for fools. 

Wait, what? If you wanna complain about cutscenes, we have a thread for that. Now, if you wanna talk about altering the colors of the biotics. I mean, blue's nice, but what about red? Or green.

Different body types / body slider would be nice. Other games do this, so it should be possible.

Well, I submitted my post before reading the whole thread, because I was rushing, and I'm pleased to see many of my thoughts shared by others This is good, because the more people suggest these things, the more likely it is they'll come to fruition, and it might mean that more people elsewhere on the internet are also suggesting them, and maybe, just maybe, Bioware themselves have some of the ideas themselves! So if I repeated something you wrote, don't feel bad, and besides, I dare say a little repetition is needed with these things

Too late! I'm sort of joking. I'm not the most qualified to judge how good he looks, nor the most invested, but I think Sheploo looked better. Although, we might as well have some normal looking people in our games. They're the exception when it comes to main characters anyway, so it's probably a good thing And you can customize them, of course. Female Ryder looks fairly normal, too.

I really hope we get to customize both siblings. And honestly, anything less wouldn't make much sense, what with family resemblance issues.

I agree, 2-3 colour options for hair (along with a wheel) with highlight patterns would be spectacular, and an eyebrow intensity slider would be another nice addition. You're right that Bioware can't seem to pull off proper blonde (or black, and even red), so hopefully they've learned by now.

More options are always good, especially so you can make different races. Haha, priorities, right? Should we make a bunch of uni-brows, or... anything else? Uni-brows, says Bioware

Haha, that can certainly happen, and not just to cheekbones, though that sort of happened to me too with my Shepard. But my first Inquisitor turned out to have this odd ape-mouth/cheeks that I didn't notice in the opening CC (mostly my fault). I couldn't do anything about it, though, because no Mirror of Transformation yet, and it irked me through my whole playthrough. It irked me so much I went back to that playthrough when the BE was released just to fix her (and make other small adjustments, even though I had a new version by then )


I couldn't tell from the front, as you can see.


Saving a character when we're done would be great, but saving part-way through would be awesome! That way, you won't lose it if something unexpected happens, and it could also let you make some adjustments that you could quickly revert from if you didn't like them. So, you could change eye colour without losing your previous coordinates in the wheel if you don't like the change. Does that make sense? Or the same thing for any feature. You could change a bunch of facial structure features at once and still have a fallback if you don't like it.

Oooo, yes, this is definitely an idea I've had as well! And it is related to the CC. Obviously, it would be hard to have lines that depended on exact placement, but just something that changed depending on if you had any at all would be pretty cool. Surely that's an easy flag. Even basic appearance could have flags. Say, if you were pale, someone could make note. Whether you had makeup or not. The colour of your eyes/hair, even, either if you picked one of the vanilla options or somewhere in a certain section of the colour-wheel.

A romance could, instead of saying "you have nice eyes" say "I love the [insert colour] in your eyes". Same for hair, etc. It's doable, although I highly doubt it'll be a feature. Honestly, it can be a bit immersion breaking sometimes when any aspect of your appearance isn't noted by anyone. On that note, something I thought was a huge missed opportunity (and immersion-breaker) in DA:I was meeting Bull as a redhead. He's crazy about redheads, but comments on them like you're not even there if you are one. He doesn't even say anything if you romance him. It would have been even easier in DA:I, since there were only about 3 shades that you could call "red", so if your character had one, it would trigger Bull's line. Voilà! But nope.

Yes please! A few different lighting options in the CC (well-lit, starry night, dim interior, etc.) combined with a way to preview some basic expressions would be a phenomenal improvement, and very feasible. It would eliminate a lot of the need to redo/alter characters later.

Definitely agree on some type of body customization, even if 3 presets or so. I'm just sick of the supermodel female protagonists who are supposed to be at least toned! Give me someone fit, at the very least. For realism, if nothing else. It really irks me. Besides, a little muscle can look good on a woman.

Yeah, as I said in my post, they should have that as another option in the facial hair section. How they didn't before is beyond me.

Definitely agree, more complexion options including separating freckles from complexion options would be ideal. Being able to add multiple layers and intensities of freckles/moles/marks etc. like Fallout did would be great, as you say.

I agree, but it wouldn't even be illogical! Crazy-good facial reconstruction surgery, and presumably other cosmetic surgery, is a thing in ME.

Both would be great additions. Seeing what you'll look like in combat, as well as when performing basic animations would be pretty cool. This would also require being able to fully rotate the camera in the CC, as well, which would be a good thing on its own.

1. That's a great idea, and DA:O did it as well. I doubt it'll happen, but, eh...

2. That's also a great idea. It's good to get a feel for what your character will actually look like, especially if body-sliders/presets are implemented.

Definitely... why they can't seem to make black without it being extremely shiny and also blueish is a mystery. I mean, look at this "black" hair:

Like, what? Improve your colours. Bioware pls.

This! I hated that the default haircut for femshep was restricted to her alone. Following in the footsteps of the tech savvy I managed to follow the instructions to mod it in once. It was a lot of work when I just wanted her to have the same hair but brown and with less make up!

I truly hope for some decent short modern hair styles for both Ryder siblings. I'd also like to see better beard and stubble options too.

My fingers are crossed for the return of face codes or at least a better way to judge the exact position of the sliders so I can duplicate the same features as required.

Seconded on the eyebrows thing. Find it hard to play DAI without an eyebrow mod - for females it seems to be a choice between very sparse and thin or huge and bushy! Some nice, shaped eyebrows would be nice. Mass Effect always seemed to do them pretty well I thought.

Hair obviously. I know it's never been one of Bioware's strong points but a little more variety would be nice. I know we're never going to have super hi-res textures and motion, which is fine, but even something that looked a little less plastic and rigid would be nice. I tend to favour shorter hairstyles anyway, so it doesn't bother me as much as some people, but more choice is always nice.

Different body shapes/scars/tattoos would be a bonus, but not a huge priority for me.

Aside from that, I thought DAI was a big step forward and if we could get something like that with a few tweaks here and there, I'd be pretty happy.

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Did you notice the colour changes to Ryder as he approached different light sources in the 4K tech Video?
I expect the game to show reflected light off objects, including off the armour of our protag and squad mates.        

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From the4K tech Video, looks like Bio stuck to their guns for Ryder's(male) hair style. It looked painted on.

I think Bioware ought to just hire BansheeOwnage as Associate Producer of the CC feature. Would be the best hire ever.

I couldn't agree more with every single item in your list, but I have to call this one out and quote it for truth:


YES! I hated the fact that I had to pick the practical style to look "right" in combat, but couldn't undo that choice for more casual or intimate moments. Particularly since practical usually meant severe looking. Talk about immersion breaking.

Speaking of no regressions, keep the mode where helmets are on during combat, off during cutscenes. That's a good compromise between immersion and "I want to be an actor in my own movie." You never see Brad Pitt spend 80% of a movie with a steamed up faceplate covering his mug. Even when every other character on screen has one.

They could do it where both male and female Ryder are on the cover, since they are both actual characters in the game. They did something like that when they officially revealed it at E3 2015.