Character customization has an immense impact on a player’s immersion throughout a game. There are even YouTube Channels dedicated to in-game character customization, from tips and tricks to Monster Factory, where creators Griffin and Justin McElroy create horrifying mistakes that only a mother could love.
Here I am going to focus on character creation in Mass Effect 1 (ME1) and Mass Effect: Andromeda (MEA). For those unfamiliar with the Mass Effect franchise, these games take place inaa science fiction future, revolving around either Commander Shepard (ME1–3) or Pathfinder Ryder (MEA) in a third-person shooter RPG. These games are focused on player character choices and skill optimization. Comparing the first in its legacy to the most recent game gives a good reference for how character customization can evolve in a single line of games.
Sidenote: Many screenshots are from Youtube. This is because I do not personally own all of these games, or I do not own them on my PC.
Mass Effect 1
Let’s look to Mass Effect 1’s character creation, which stays true throughout the first trilogy of the franchise. Though ME1 was released in 2007, it is a well-known franchise which designs have impacted other character customization tools.
When a player begins ME1, they are first prompted to choose between a Male or Female Shepard, their first name, their background and psychological profile which determines a few lines of dialogue and a side mission, as well as their military specialization, which affects playstyle. This gives a new player an idea of who their character is before digging deep into their appearance. Going macro to micro in interactions appropriately stacks the amount of tasks users are required to analyze, thus that they are not overwhelmed when beginning to customize their characters. Though it also can give a taste of who Shepard is to the player, helping inspire an image of a player’s own customization, this hypothesis is impaired by the default appearance of Shepard in the far right.
After this, players choose their appearance. Let’s break down everything a player can customize in Mass Effect 1–3:
There are no options concerning other aspects, such as body-type. All of these options are listed from top-down, and utilize a slide bar. Shepard’s face is presented to the right of the slide bars, changing as players adjust the slide bars, while also allowing players to turn Shepard’s head in order to view different features. These slide bars contain no information, such as tick marks or numbers, about how many options per category exist. Such measuring tools would be useful for a player to know how many options there are to scroll through, and would allow them to keep track of which option they liked if they are between two, so that they can easily compare. The sliding bar used throughout the experience keeps continuity with design, but this disregards the context of certain options. For example, color options, such as Hair Color or Lip Color, would be more helpful if a color chart were used. Players could then specify exactly which color they prefer, rather than going through preset options. Finally, though some options are obvious as to what changes (Nose Shape changes the shape of the nose, while Nose Height changes the length of the nose on the face), others, including Complexion and Scar, are not so clear. These cycle through presets of options of different complexion types as well as scars.
Though presenting a customized player character zoomed-in would appear to work, there were many times where I had to restart the game in order to fix a feature that was “off.” After 2 minutes of an intro-scene, I finally was able to view my Shepard in-game. This is because there is a great deal a player can’t tell with a stoic face and still body. How will the size and position of the lips affect how my character talks? How will the brow height affect my character’s facial expressions? And so on. In addition, this was also due to the uncertainty of certain options, such as chin depth, or cheek gaunt, unless viewing at a very specific angle. In order to better inspect and understand these changes, there should be some visual clue or guide, such as a momentary highlight of what is being altered, or by guiding the camera, for the player, to an angle where this is best viewed. Thus, being able to immediately see what a customizable character looks in-context of the game is important. To keep the drama of the first cutscene, an easy fix would be to allow users to customize Shepard at least once after this introduction. This has the side-effect of breaking the 3rd wall, but it is well worth the time and frustration of restarting a game. In fact, when re-creating my character in Mass Effect 2, I utilized a face database wherein I copied other people’s customization options, instead of creating my own character.
Next, Mass Effect Andromeda.
When a player first decides to customize a character in Mass Effect Andromeda, they are presented with the following options in a top-down format:
While ME1 goes macro to micro in terms of customization, giving the player an idea of who their character is before customizing appearance, MEA immediately starts with the nitty-gritty. This is presented in opposite order compared to ME1, where history and specialization were first. I would argue that MEA understands exactly what players want this screen for: appearance customization. Meanwhile, it also gives players the freedom to choose in what order they wish to customize, as well as an overarching idea of all customizable components. This overview screen allows players to go back and forth between different customization options. This flexibility is important in character customization. It prevents user-errors, such as needing to restart the entire process, or backtracking, just to change one option that they may have passed in ME1.
The following are a breakdown of what can be customized for this game:
The head presents for MEA received a great deal of criticism, mainly centering around the attractiveness of each facial preset. Here is a comparison of defaults from Mass Effect 2 to MEA.
Though some of these characters, particularly the blonde Ryder, who suffers from poor makeup choices on the part of the designers, they are not terribly ugly. Rather, they are more diverse and realistic than the original set of facial presets. In ME1, most presets had a slim nose, a slender jaw line, identically spaced eyes, nearly identical lips, and a lack of dark circles under eyes, or other minor, natural additions. However, the strong differences in MEA’s character presets have more impact on any future customization option compared to ME1’s presets. Thus, it is more difficult for players to choose which preset they prefer to use as a base, as changing the preset can make it extremely difficult to obtain a certain ideal look for Ryder. When a preset is changed, this also removes any changes players did on their current Ryder, wasting time and effort. A better option would have been to include the same alterations to the face, while simply changing the base facial structure, with a separate option to completely start over. Maybe a player’s choices didn’t work on Preset 1, but they look great on Preset 3. The more control a player has over creation such as this, without the fear of work being lost, the better.
A sliding bar is used for most options in MEA, similar to ME1, but this time: with numbers! The numbered options on the sliding scale allowed players to keep track of which options they like most, and made it much less of a headache to compare between said options. Other options, such as eye color and eyeshadow color, used a prismatic color selector tool, allowing for true freedom of choice. Meanwhile, hair color used a palette format when choosing color. Though it broke continuity of design, the context of hair is different from that of makeup- where anything in a sci-fi verse would go. Hair color is better understood in palette form — as if someone is going down an aisle of hair dye, while still allowing for creative colors, such as pastel blues and pinks. (For some strange reason, skin color only used a sliding bar rather than a color palette. I am still confused by this choice.) This is definitely a step forward in creation tools for MEA. I also applaud MEA for allowing makeup on male characters! However, it would have been nice to see the same with facial hair on ladies. Some ladies, do in fact naturally have facial hair. Why not?
Once again, players are thwarted by unclear facial structure options, and the difference between a stoic-face in character creation vs in-game. Except, this time, when waiting for my in-game Ryder to be introduced, I had to wait 3~ minutes to see them compared to 2~ in ME1. That extra 60 seconds of waiting, not including loading just to discover whether or not my Ryder actually looked good was torture. Personally, I only ended up playing the game after messing with facial customization options for two days. Two days! Where I could have been exploring the universe!
And if that’s not enough, now characters have to customize a twin Ryder as well. Though, customization is amazing, this makes things a little more daunting, as the result of the twin, combined with a player’s main Ryder’s features, affects the appearance of the father Ryder, but this isn’t known until approximately 10~ minutes of gameplay. Depending on choices with the twin Ryder, the father Ryder could look downright hilarious. Players should always know if choices they are making in character customization will affect the appearance of other, non-plot changing appearances. Players should be able to see a preview of their father before confirming their choices. I couldn’t take my own father figure in game seriously due to how terrible he looked. I didn’t bother customizing my twin Ryder. I had thought: Why should I? I’m not playing him, after all.
Finally, MEA allows players to choose their training, almost identical to ME1. Though this may help with a player’s idea of their character’s backstory, it ends up having little to no importance after the introduction to the game, as a character can open up any route of gameplay. I would argue that, if this is a potential to solve player frustration with a specialization they failed to enjoy partway through the game, MEA should also offer a solve to appearance frustration. My first three Ryder’s had ridiculous duck-lips, forcing me to restart the game because I could not take them seriously. Give me an option at some quick, sci-fi liposuction.
One solve that I do appreciate for this appearance issue is the option to upload or import character data. MEA may have caught onto ME2’s face archive, and allowed players to upload their own Ryder’s appearance, or download a different player’s Ryder whose appearance they liked. This was unavailable for the first few weeks, but once it was, many popular Ryder variants, with clever creators able to make model-like features, were available for me to choose from. No longer was I terrified of accidentally making my lips too low, or my cheeks too gaunt.
In the end, MEA made strides with some of its character creation tools, particularly with color options and the ability to move forward or backwards through the creation progress. However, vastly different facial presets and an additional challenge of creating a twin proved frustrating.
Improvements from ME1 to MEA:
- Sliding bar with no numbers → Sliding bar with numbers
- Hair color selection sliding bar → Hair color selection with palette
- Makeup color selection with sliding bar → Makeup color selection with prismatic tool
- Makeup without opacity or gloss → Makeup with opacity and gloss
- No makeup for male characters → Makeup for male characters
- Similar facial presets → Extremely diverse facial presets
- Inflexible order of customization → Flexible order of customization
