Best Games with great character creation | Updated 2021

The Sims 4

Customisability is one of the most important features of The Sims series.

The series relies on the players being able to make the kind of house they want, sensible or nonsensical alike, and on them being able to design the kinds of family they want for the playthrough. Luckily, in The Sims 4, Create-a-Sim is mighty indeed, and with seemingly very few meaningful limits.

When you Create-a-Sim, your control over a character is almost absolute. You get sculpt the face any way you want, you can change body shape, and pick preferred clothing for a variety of occasions.

But wait, there’s more: you also get to define the Sim’s personality and ambitions, generating a character with internal motivations. It’s really fun to just make Sims, let alone see them live their little lives.

The Sims 4 DLC

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Warframe

When you start out in Warframe, the extent of customisation isn’t staggering, but soon enough things start flowing in.

There are skins and helmets for your warframe, cosmetic armour attachments, capes and other back-mounted ornaments. Everything can be coloured, usually with five specific independent colour “slots”, including the tint of lights and energy emanations.

But wait, there’s more! You can get customisable symbols to put on your chest and back, there are also “ephemeras” – cosmetic auras for your armour. Even weapons can be customised with colours, skins, and adjustable holster position.

Much of that takes platinum, the premium currency, but some options are only available from events or simply as rewards for just being a returning player.

Warframe is a free-to-play game, you can buy additional content below.

Warframe: Initiate Pack

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Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age: Inquisition face-sculpting options are just a shade or two below Fallout 4, by which we mean: there are pretty hefty without being overwhelming like Black Desert Online.

There are four species (humans, elves, dwarves, qunari) to choose from, each with several head presets which you can further customise from the chin up with sliders and a precise customisation box where applicable.

Which a bit of effort you can make faces very different from the presets you selected at the beginning, and there’s a good chance they’ll look really good, unless you go completely wild on the sliders.

You can even pick a voice: the choice is rather binary, but it exists. Later down the line you’ll also get to customise your armour via a surprisingly satisfying crafting system.

Dragon Age: Inquisition | Game of the Year Edition

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Cyberpunk 2077

Having a drab character creation wouldn’t fly for Cyberpunk 2077. The game takes place in a setting where being cool is fundamental and cybernetic implants are a common sight anywhere you go.

As a result we get a quite detailed character creator, which includes a boatload of sliders with a whole bunch of options in each. If you’re into this kind of detail, you can even customise the private parts.

You also get to change the appearance of some basic cyberware V (your character) has on their face, if you want to look more cyber. Finally, you have to pick your character’s lifepath – essentially your backstory, and assign attribute points, to define V’s core competencies and natural aptitude.

Later in the game you’ll also get new cyberware, which might be visible on your model, depending on the type.

Cyberpunk 2077

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Baldur’s Gate 3

Although Baldur’s Gate 3 is currently in Early Access, there’s already a lot to bite into in terms of character creation.

There are no face-morphing options at this point, but each species has a few male and female premade faces to choose from, as well as selection of hairstyles drawn from a larger pool. You can also apply makeup and tattoos, all colourable and looking really good.

One of the nicest features is that although each playable species has a “canon” selection of skin/hair/eye colours, it takes only a single click to unlock ALL the colours, and, for instance, give your human fighter the burning eyes of a tiefling if you want to, no problem.

And, of course, there’s the typical D&D customisation in terms of class, species, skills and attributes to complement the look.

Baldur's Gate 3

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Black Desert Online

Black Desert Online’s character creator is easily one of the most impressive on the market, especially where fine control over details is considered. Few games allow the user to adjust things like haircut.

Usually once you select the -do, it’s static and you can’t do anything about it other than pick a different one. Black Desert Online? It lets you move your hair around, change its length and apply highlights.

That freedom extends to other features of your prospective character as well: limb proportions, face shape, minute changes to eyes or nose, or what have you. And the game’s beautiful graphics make all but the wildest creations look incredible.

The one potential downside, depending on your preferences, is that characters made in this creator all look like potential Final Fantasy cast members.

Black Desert Online is a free to play game. You can buy additional content below

Black Desert Online

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BloodBorne

“Extensive character’s appearance customisation” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind upon being asked about Bloodborne, and yet this game has it as one of its features.

The game has so many sliders for so many separate aspects of a character’s appearance, that it allows a creative player to go wild and create incredibly monstrous humanoids as well as virtual cosplays of real and fictional people.

Better still, like FromSoft’s Dark Souls games it has a “Similar Face” feature, creating new faces based on presets and things you’ve already created.

You can make a character much scarier than anything in the game, or play as, say, the Joker. Or some kind of weird Toucan Man. The point is, the options are very powerful even though you’re not likely to pay attention to your looks when you’re being killed.

BloodBorne Goty (PS4) Hardcopy

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Champion's Online

Don’t be fooled by Champion’s Online cartoonish style. The character creation in this game is a gateway to creating some of the wildest comic book rejected concepts you could imagine.

You start by customising you body’s dimensions: nothing’s stopping you from making a fantasy dwarf, a towering Stickman/Slenderman mash-up, or a Liefeldian overly muscular character with tiny feet and chest the size of a car.

And that’s before we get into facial features and numerous options for your superhero costume. From underwear to leotards and armour pieces, you have an incredible freedom in designing your champion. And then there are accessories, some of which can also be layered.

One could spend hours in the character creation screen, recreating their favourite heroes, or making something original. Maybe you’ll discover an accessory which gives you a new idea and makes you start from scratch to make it suit your new vision?

Should you visit the in-game night club Caprice, you’ll see just how many possibilities there are, although the game is past its prime as far the number of players is concerned.

Champions Online is a free to play game.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

The character creation in Dragon’s Dogma lets you customise the presets to an astonishing extent and is flexible enough for you to be able to recreate Geralt, or maybe Jon Snow, and make them live in this existentially bleak fantasy land.

There are plenty of sliders to adjust the facial features, many hairstyles or facial hair shapes. If you pick the right preset and fiddle around, you’ll be able to create interesting virtual cosplay of famous figures.

The character creation doesn’t end with just appearance. The size and weight of your avatar directly influence their physical abilities. If you want an agile and tireless scout capable of hanging onto monsters’ hides for a long time, you’d better make someone short and light.

If you instead prefer someone very hard to unbalance and capable of carrying a lot of loot then you should make your Arisen tall and heavy. Dragon’s Dogma is also probably the only game with a preset dedicated to letting the players play as Guts from the ‘Berserk’ manga.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

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Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition

Fallout 4’s character creation is terrifyingly robust.

In addition to the quite uncanny degree to which the characters’ (you get to design both parents of the unlucky child, although you only play as one) facial structure can be changed, there’s much more to tweak still.

There is plenty of make-up designs, tons of various blemishes and scars, and numerous hairstyles and facial hair shapes. You could make virtually anyone’s likeness if you spend enough time adjusting the details.

The celebrity faces Fallout 4 community managed to recreate include Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, and even the late Sir Christopher Lee.

Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition

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Monster Hunter World

Character creation in Monster Hunter World, much like in many other games, is based around presets, but it’s very easy to stray far from the pre-generated faces.

The creator is quite simple to get the hang of, and, while lacking sliders, allows for quite a lot. The community has taken with aplomb to recreating characters from around the popculture or their own faces, with interesting results.

It was also a stroke of genius for the developers to include lighting changes in the creator. You can switch between three lighting schemes at any time. This alleviates the problems of many other creators. Characters often look great in the featureless void of creation, but in the actual game this often changes. Being able to see a character under different lights is brilliant and helpful.

There’s also a second character creator, dedicated to designing your character’s catlike Palico companion, including fur colour and pattern, as even shape of the tail. More games should allow players to customise pets/companions!

Monster Hunter World

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Saints Row (esp. 3 & 4)

Many a character creator only let you design your avatar’s face, which is then bolted onto a standardised body. Saints Row doesn’t do that. At character creation you have a triangular slider of “slim”, “fat” and “muscular”, and a pointer you can place anywhere between the three.

If you want to play a rotund character, you can, a slim one? No problem. The game will have little problem adjust all available clothes (really, all of them) to match your avatar’s model.

Better yet, after the character creation you can still easily edit your character, including their outfits. The game has a staggering selection of clothes, and you can use any (or none) of them.

You can also, of course, customise the character’s face. Due to the game’s graphics leaning away from realism you’re not going to see much detail, but it sits comfortably in the space between a cartoonish aesthetic and Grand Theft Auto’s style.

Saints Row: The Third

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Saints Row IV: Game of the Century Edition

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SoulCalibur VI

SoulCalibur VI’s custom character creator had been the talk of the gaming side of the Internet for weeks, and with good reason.

The things people have been able to create using it, even before mods came into play, boggle the mind. Nightmarish renditions of Kirby and Sonic, or surprisingly faithful recreations of other characters from popculture.

The secret lies in an extremely flexible accessory and clothing systems, which have tons of diverse pieces, all configurable regarding their position, rotation, colour etc.

It’s quite similar to Champions Online’s creator, but with much better graphics and even more freedom. There was even a person who used Voldo’s bizarre fighting style to make a character who transforms into a Magicarp.

SoulCalibur VI

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WWE 2K20

Given American wrestling’s propensity for creative outfits and outlandish personas it no wonder that a game aiming to simulate that show/sport gave the players a way to create their own heels or faces.

Creating Super Mario’s eponymous character is just the beginning of the journey. Just look at Griffin and Justin McElroy’s Monster Mania from a previous edition of the WWE 2K series and see just what kind of monstrosities and weirdos you can make with disturbingly little effort.

Some editions even allow you to upload a photo and morph the in-game model to fit the image, potentially creating truly cursed, but inherently entertaining results.

It sounds bad? Maybe, but it proves how flexible the creator is in allow you to create unholy abominations in the same system that allows you to make regular human beings.

WWE 2K20

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XCOM 2

A part of the XCOM experience is customising your soldiers to make them look like your friends, foes, and characters from popculture….and then trying to keep them alive during very deadly missions.

While the first XCOM by Firaxis was decent on that front, the sequel goes all in. Every armour has several variants and you can mix and match between sleeves, chestguards, and trousers as you see fit. You can also pick from a stunning variety of headwear, lower and upper face accessories, tattoos…

In the case of your weapons and armour you can customise the paint patterns, the list of which includes military camo as well as smiley faces or hearts, if you prefer to make love, not war.

There is also a greater selection of faces, hairstyles, and facial hair, you can select an attitude which would define some animations… And then there are fully supported mods (including via Steam Workshop), which introduce even more options ripped from movies, other games, or made from the ground up by the mod creators.

XCOM 2 Collection Steam

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