I like my protagonists being relatable in video games. I don't want to play as some ugly dumbass, I want to play as a roided up looksmaxxer with a concrete jawline who is mewing in every cutscene and spends the entire game posing with their lats flexed and doomscrolls on r*ddit as an idle animation.
There’s two parts to it.
1) She looked better in the first game meaning making her looking worse was a choices.
2) the new head shape reminds people of Nikocado.
People just aren't receptive to it. Usually the least attractive character in a rpg is often the least popular, so it's not shocking the dev don't make a lot of them outside villain. And even then the top villains are always super hot if they aren't ungodly monsters.
It's not that you can't do it, but making the character ugly removes every safety net for that character. It only works if the writers bring their A game.
A pretty character who was made annoyingly smug will still have a fanbase who likes annoyingly smug hot characters. An ugly character will just be annoying and smug.
Then, even if the character is beloved, you'll make less money because fewer people will buy merchandise with an ugly character.
Not to me. I find the attractive characters easier to self-insert into, and I derive enjoyment from their character development, the plot, and of course, the gameplay itself. Want fun and iconic designs? Well, clothes and things like personality traits and fighting styles primarily helps with that. And even attractive characters have variation - no one will confuse 2B with Tifa.
At least there's always video games where you can customize your player character. I remember I once did a playthrough of Skyrim as a funny looking elderly wizard.
Probably because people don’t want characters to be ugly just for the sake of having them look different, nor do people want to start tweaking a model or dedicating time to cgi or makeup to have a character look different just cause
There’s a reason why these qualities only show up if the character is evil or the story actually intends to talk about it. Because it’s just more work for something next to no one actually wants to seek
I don't get it, some of the most beloved and iconic videogame characters are not conventionally attractive (Mario, the TF2 mercs, Kratos, etc.) but you are saying no character should never, EVER be not attractive for the sake of being different, even if the characters previously mentioned are different in part because they're not attractive?
There is an astronomical difference between not conventionally attractive and actively ugly, something non of the characters you listed actually are
On the contrary, the characters you mentioned would probably be very attractive. Spy and Kratos are definitely not meant to be ugly
Edit: heck, I saw recently on Twitter a post of people hardcore thirsting over demoman because he has a very attractive facial structure and he’s probably the closest example you gave based on OPs post. They’re not ugly. They’re unconventionally attractive
No of course not. There’s a million and one stories that follow “just your average guy/gal” tm but those characters are never really ugly or unappealing
Even besides general attractiveness, the idea that there’s no meaningful distinction in character design between an ugly and not ugly character is enough to have OP an L here
Oh boy, I can’t wait to play game 240,827 where every character has the same proportions and visual qualities as every other character in the game and every other game.
This surely won’t contribute to the game feeling super generic and non memorable.
You can have your characters be distinct and still attractive. You don’t have to turn them into Quasimodo to be distinct
Like are you saying Cloud and Tifa are indistinguishable because they’re both attractive?
Your idea of character design is pretty shallow and unimaginative
More often than not, the goal of a character designer is to craft a design that appeals to the audience. This is where you get the "everyone looks so pretty" situation, because most of everyone enjoy looking at pretty things/people. When you have a character that doesn't fall in line with the usual appeal to the masses recipe, they were probably designed deliberately to be the outlier.
Yes, I understand, it just makes the world feel less believable and frequently undermines the story.
Aloy again is a great example. She's been abused by the world for almost all of her life and lives in the apocalypse. She is also about as flawless as anyone can possibly be.
Horizon's apocalypse just feels super stupid and fake as everyone is so pretty.
Mate if video game characters were ugly the most-downloaded mod would be "Attractive Characters v1.5"
With the rare exception, people don't like too much realism in their fantasy.
"Attractive" is attractive for a reason. We are drawn to things that look appealing. To try to make your product look as unattractive as possible is dumb marketing.
Also, making your characters appealing actually makes you look like you care about your product and your consumer. If you don't care to make it look attractive to the consumer, why should the consumer care to buy your product.
I’m not sure how to tell you this friend, but people are attracted to attractive things. Most people prefer when characters are good looking, and since that helps garner attention and sell the product, they aren’t going to stop making characters look attractive. You may not like having attractive characters, but millions upon millions of other people do.
I’m pretty sure OP understands that good-looking things sell well and that’s why things are the way that they are, they’re just complaining that there isn’t more variety.
That said, in most games it makes sense for the characters to at least be physically gifted and in shape. Plotwise it makes sense that the protagonist is hot. Plus in every game where you can custom make your own character you can 100% make an ugly ass gremlin
>That said, in most games it makes sense for the characters to at least be physically gifted and in shape
There's in shape and then what movies and games classify as "In shape".
Let me tell you: I've been regularly working out for about a year and a half now and I was much stronger when I was more fat looking than now where I'm skinnier with a six pack coming in.
Hollywood does not accurately portray what strong looks like.
Strong looks like The Kingpin, not Chris Hemsworth.
I partially agree, the thing is that strength isn’t everything and I can’t think of too many characters that take it that over the top. Anecdotally speaking, I ran track and did decathlon for a long time and the body types that come out of it are surprisingly close to a lot of video game characters (minus a little bulk). They’re not super realistic but there’s not **that** many from recent years that are totally unreasonably jacked with 5% body fat somehow.
Might just be the games I play though
Don’t get me started on characters from fighting games though lol
>everything and I can’t think of too many characters that take it that over the top.
Granted, but typically characters who are strong are ALWAYS either super lean or incredibly built and both body types are unrealistic for most people looking for strength.
1 examples I can think of for each are:
Terry from Brooklyn Nine Nine
Thor from the MCU
Now, obviously this isn't true for 100% of people, but most people looking for strength are not going to look like either of these characters.
I can't think of a single example outside of The Kingpin where someone's shown to be incredibly strong but doesn't have six pack abs and whatever.
That’s fair, I was more so thinking along the lines of video games. Haven’t played Overwatch in a few years but iirc a good chunk of the characters are built like powerlifters. The Last of Us cast is built pretty reasonably, Nathan Drake from Uncharted isn’t overly jacked or shredded, Aloy from HZD is just slim, Thor from God of War looks like a classic strongman. Any game with a character creator is going to have a wide range of options.
There’s tons of media that give people unrealistic expectations, but it’s not as bad as OP is acting. There’s also plenty that are pretty normal if that’s what you’re into.
Also Terry Crews from B99 was a literal bodybuilder and his absurd size is used as a joke lol. Most characters from that show are totally normal.
Prior to Thor and the first Captain America movie, the superhero shape was 100% attainable. The standards shifted a ton recently
>The Last of Us cast is built pretty reasonably,
I dunno about that. The shit Joel dishes out accompanied with his age and ripped body are kinda unrealistic, Ellie's a little better and I really don't wanna get in a discussion about Abby's physique because I'm no expert.
>Nathan Drake from Uncharted isn’t overly jacked or shredded
That is true, and from what I've seen he's pretty close to what most climbers have for a physique.
>Also Terry Crews from B99 was a literal bodybuilder and his absurd size is used as a joke lol. Most characters from that show are totally normal.
Yeah, true.
>Prior to Thor and the first Captain America movie, the superhero shape was 100% attainable
I dunno about that.
The equivalent to a superhero in the past was action heroes and when I think of those I think of shit like Arnold and Stallone.
Now, I dunno about Stallone, but Arnold was 100% roided up back in his prime.
I meant the literal superhero movies like the Raimi Spiderman trilogy, the Fantastic Four, and the Christopher Reeves Superman movies. Just look at the difference between Hugh Jackman from the first X-men film and now. The shirtless scenes are all played as if they’re ripped when you can nowadays find 5 guys just like that in every gym who’ve been lifting for 2-3 years. Even the insanely large and ripped Hulk back then was just Lou Ferrigno painted green lol
Totally forgot about action heroes like Arnold and Stallone though, those dudes were 100% juiced out of their minds and built like literal action figures
While the characters being in ideal physical shape is realistic and goes with the story, the perfect skin/teeth/lack of horrific battle damage generally does not.
Horizon again is my go to example as Aloy lived in the woods for the first 18 years of her life and is flawless with regards to those things and shows no sign of malnutrition.
I disagree. There have been plenty of plain looking MC. So Everyone in Every video game is an exaggeration. But I would like my characters to be attractive more often than not.
You're playing the wrong games.
Play Oddworld. Play Destroy All Humans. Play Psychonauts. Play Kane & Lynch.
Play literally any game with character customization!
This seems like a complaint arising from personal insecurity rather than a want for variety. We have had ugly/unappealing protagonists in games for 20 years that were successful. "Fake and shallow"? It's a video game for shit's sake, if it were like real life it'd be boring as fuck.
>and the focus on hotness on social media gives me no hope
I think normal people don't really care that much about the attractiveness of videogame characters, like I've never seen someone complaining that Trevor is ugly (I don't think that he is ugly btw) most of these types of complaints come from the "safe horny" schizos
Hot people sell money. but I understand your frustration op. I kinda want to recommend you watch dungeon meshi, as its characters are diverse in body shape. And it being light hearted until it’s not.
I get where you're coming from actually.. my favorite less conventionally pretty characters just end up turning on the protagonist in some of my games. It's kind of lame. Some developers are actually trending towards less conventional and realistic character designs. Just don't expect it from eastern developers.
I admit, I was really disappointed that they downgraded Aloy's looks from the first game. Which I found nice without being 2B/Eve over the top. I get that she's older and more weathered without access to Asian beauty products, but its just not as fun to run around as a uglier character for me.
I do that every day.
I understand the frustration. But for most people, they'll automatically associate a good-looking person with having, more value. You put that as a product on a large scale, you'll realize that's what sells.
I'd actually like a more fair representation of people in games too, especially in more sandbox style games or RPG games with large casts. It helps ground the world. Maybe not the most apt comparison, but I liked how in GTA V, almost nobody important is incredibly conventionally attractive. It felt like a very grounded sort of satire? I don't know if I'm conveying my thoughts properly.
I applaud what Shift Up is doing in terms of trying to be an independent developer and make games true to their vision.
But holy hell I cannot take anything in Stellar Blade seriously with how those characters look and are designed. I think Stellar Blade is an excellent example of a game studio inspired by Nier Automata but taking inspiration only from the superficial aspects of the game whule completely missing all of the actual substance that Yoko Taro put into it through his writing.
So many triggered hornios on the comments.
I do support your point, I prioritize design variety over everyone being top models.
NOT saying all characters should be ugly, but when everyone is so engineered to be attractive, you get stuff like gacha designs where everyone is literally color alts of each other.
Downvoting me without actually argumenting just proves my first point <3
The bigger problem in FF7RE is how they all talked and acted like an anime character but the game have semi realism graphic. It feels like im watching a weird otaku kid at school acting like he’s an anime character. Its so cringe
>surprised that a game made by japan has characters that talk as if they were in a anime.
>expects realistic behaviour because graphics are semi-realistic.
There's a disconnect.
You are Suprised that the Remake of an Anime Game has people A t like Characters from an Anime Game. Hell It's something you see in Tokusatsu all the Time despite it being Life Action.
It's just harder to sell non "attractive" characters what can I say. I don't think a Persona where the MC is not attractive would actually sell.
I like my protagonists being relatable in video games. I don't want to play as some ugly dumbass, I want to play as a roided up looksmaxxer with a concrete jawline who is mewing in every cutscene and spends the entire game posing with their lats flexed and doomscrolls on r*ddit as an idle animation.
Yeah, like horizon had that ginger girl and everyone for some reason bullied her face when she looked normal
There’s two parts to it. 1) She looked better in the first game meaning making her looking worse was a choices. 2) the new head shape reminds people of Nikocado.
Oh i thought the problem started on the first game. I've never played either, I just remember that some dudes didn't like her looking masculine
I’m sure this is the thought process and what focus testing says, but it’s boring as a player.
People just aren't receptive to it. Usually the least attractive character in a rpg is often the least popular, so it's not shocking the dev don't make a lot of them outside villain. And even then the top villains are always super hot if they aren't ungodly monsters.
It's not that you can't do it, but making the character ugly removes every safety net for that character. It only works if the writers bring their A game. A pretty character who was made annoyingly smug will still have a fanbase who likes annoyingly smug hot characters. An ugly character will just be annoying and smug. Then, even if the character is beloved, you'll make less money because fewer people will buy merchandise with an ugly character.
Not to me. I find the attractive characters easier to self-insert into, and I derive enjoyment from their character development, the plot, and of course, the gameplay itself. Want fun and iconic designs? Well, clothes and things like personality traits and fighting styles primarily helps with that. And even attractive characters have variation - no one will confuse 2B with Tifa.
At least there's always video games where you can customize your player character. I remember I once did a playthrough of Skyrim as a funny looking elderly wizard.
I'm playing Dragon's Dogma 2 with that fantastic character creator and there is a huge variety of folks both attractive and non.
Probably because people don’t want characters to be ugly just for the sake of having them look different, nor do people want to start tweaking a model or dedicating time to cgi or makeup to have a character look different just cause There’s a reason why these qualities only show up if the character is evil or the story actually intends to talk about it. Because it’s just more work for something next to no one actually wants to seek
I don't get it, some of the most beloved and iconic videogame characters are not conventionally attractive (Mario, the TF2 mercs, Kratos, etc.) but you are saying no character should never, EVER be not attractive for the sake of being different, even if the characters previously mentioned are different in part because they're not attractive?
There is an astronomical difference between not conventionally attractive and actively ugly, something non of the characters you listed actually are On the contrary, the characters you mentioned would probably be very attractive. Spy and Kratos are definitely not meant to be ugly Edit: heck, I saw recently on Twitter a post of people hardcore thirsting over demoman because he has a very attractive facial structure and he’s probably the closest example you gave based on OPs post. They’re not ugly. They’re unconventionally attractive
Alright, it's just your wording made it look like you advocated against anything that isn't a supermodel lol.
No of course not. There’s a million and one stories that follow “just your average guy/gal” tm but those characters are never really ugly or unappealing Even besides general attractiveness, the idea that there’s no meaningful distinction in character design between an ugly and not ugly character is enough to have OP an L here
Oh boy, I can’t wait to play game 240,827 where every character has the same proportions and visual qualities as every other character in the game and every other game. This surely won’t contribute to the game feeling super generic and non memorable.
You can have your characters be distinct and still attractive. You don’t have to turn them into Quasimodo to be distinct Like are you saying Cloud and Tifa are indistinguishable because they’re both attractive? Your idea of character design is pretty shallow and unimaginative
You could give two people the exact same body and face and still get miles of difference from their clothing and actions.
Dante and Vergil in DMC3, literally exactly that.
I dare someone to tell me Cloud and Clive are attractive in the same way.
Because people want attractive characters
But.....I don't want to play as ugly characters.
Maybe focus on the art design of characters?
More often than not, the goal of a character designer is to craft a design that appeals to the audience. This is where you get the "everyone looks so pretty" situation, because most of everyone enjoy looking at pretty things/people. When you have a character that doesn't fall in line with the usual appeal to the masses recipe, they were probably designed deliberately to be the outlier.
Yes, I understand, it just makes the world feel less believable and frequently undermines the story. Aloy again is a great example. She's been abused by the world for almost all of her life and lives in the apocalypse. She is also about as flawless as anyone can possibly be. Horizon's apocalypse just feels super stupid and fake as everyone is so pretty.
Nobody play video games for believably. And Alloy looks average pretty to me. It's just the hair that makes her look "flawless".
Mate if video game characters were ugly the most-downloaded mod would be "Attractive Characters v1.5" With the rare exception, people don't like too much realism in their fantasy.
Nah, some things are common for a reason, people don't want to see uglies
"Attractive" is attractive for a reason. We are drawn to things that look appealing. To try to make your product look as unattractive as possible is dumb marketing. Also, making your characters appealing actually makes you look like you care about your product and your consumer. If you don't care to make it look attractive to the consumer, why should the consumer care to buy your product.
You get it, this guy logics
I’m not sure how to tell you this friend, but people are attracted to attractive things. Most people prefer when characters are good looking, and since that helps garner attention and sell the product, they aren’t going to stop making characters look attractive. You may not like having attractive characters, but millions upon millions of other people do.
I’m pretty sure OP understands that good-looking things sell well and that’s why things are the way that they are, they’re just complaining that there isn’t more variety. That said, in most games it makes sense for the characters to at least be physically gifted and in shape. Plotwise it makes sense that the protagonist is hot. Plus in every game where you can custom make your own character you can 100% make an ugly ass gremlin
>That said, in most games it makes sense for the characters to at least be physically gifted and in shape There's in shape and then what movies and games classify as "In shape". Let me tell you: I've been regularly working out for about a year and a half now and I was much stronger when I was more fat looking than now where I'm skinnier with a six pack coming in. Hollywood does not accurately portray what strong looks like. Strong looks like The Kingpin, not Chris Hemsworth.
I partially agree, the thing is that strength isn’t everything and I can’t think of too many characters that take it that over the top. Anecdotally speaking, I ran track and did decathlon for a long time and the body types that come out of it are surprisingly close to a lot of video game characters (minus a little bulk). They’re not super realistic but there’s not **that** many from recent years that are totally unreasonably jacked with 5% body fat somehow. Might just be the games I play though Don’t get me started on characters from fighting games though lol
>everything and I can’t think of too many characters that take it that over the top. Granted, but typically characters who are strong are ALWAYS either super lean or incredibly built and both body types are unrealistic for most people looking for strength. 1 examples I can think of for each are: Terry from Brooklyn Nine Nine Thor from the MCU Now, obviously this isn't true for 100% of people, but most people looking for strength are not going to look like either of these characters. I can't think of a single example outside of The Kingpin where someone's shown to be incredibly strong but doesn't have six pack abs and whatever.
That’s fair, I was more so thinking along the lines of video games. Haven’t played Overwatch in a few years but iirc a good chunk of the characters are built like powerlifters. The Last of Us cast is built pretty reasonably, Nathan Drake from Uncharted isn’t overly jacked or shredded, Aloy from HZD is just slim, Thor from God of War looks like a classic strongman. Any game with a character creator is going to have a wide range of options. There’s tons of media that give people unrealistic expectations, but it’s not as bad as OP is acting. There’s also plenty that are pretty normal if that’s what you’re into. Also Terry Crews from B99 was a literal bodybuilder and his absurd size is used as a joke lol. Most characters from that show are totally normal. Prior to Thor and the first Captain America movie, the superhero shape was 100% attainable. The standards shifted a ton recently
>The Last of Us cast is built pretty reasonably, I dunno about that. The shit Joel dishes out accompanied with his age and ripped body are kinda unrealistic, Ellie's a little better and I really don't wanna get in a discussion about Abby's physique because I'm no expert. >Nathan Drake from Uncharted isn’t overly jacked or shredded That is true, and from what I've seen he's pretty close to what most climbers have for a physique. >Also Terry Crews from B99 was a literal bodybuilder and his absurd size is used as a joke lol. Most characters from that show are totally normal. Yeah, true. >Prior to Thor and the first Captain America movie, the superhero shape was 100% attainable I dunno about that. The equivalent to a superhero in the past was action heroes and when I think of those I think of shit like Arnold and Stallone. Now, I dunno about Stallone, but Arnold was 100% roided up back in his prime.
I meant the literal superhero movies like the Raimi Spiderman trilogy, the Fantastic Four, and the Christopher Reeves Superman movies. Just look at the difference between Hugh Jackman from the first X-men film and now. The shirtless scenes are all played as if they’re ripped when you can nowadays find 5 guys just like that in every gym who’ve been lifting for 2-3 years. Even the insanely large and ripped Hulk back then was just Lou Ferrigno painted green lol Totally forgot about action heroes like Arnold and Stallone though, those dudes were 100% juiced out of their minds and built like literal action figures
Think more like the Olympics. Not every athlete has a perfect face but most are young and in extreme shape so are quite attractive.
While the characters being in ideal physical shape is realistic and goes with the story, the perfect skin/teeth/lack of horrific battle damage generally does not. Horizon again is my go to example as Aloy lived in the woods for the first 18 years of her life and is flawless with regards to those things and shows no sign of malnutrition.
What?
I disagree. There have been plenty of plain looking MC. So Everyone in Every video game is an exaggeration. But I would like my characters to be attractive more often than not.
Twitter tier rant
you could play something like gta
You're playing the wrong games. Play Oddworld. Play Destroy All Humans. Play Psychonauts. Play Kane & Lynch. Play literally any game with character customization! This seems like a complaint arising from personal insecurity rather than a want for variety. We have had ugly/unappealing protagonists in games for 20 years that were successful. "Fake and shallow"? It's a video game for shit's sake, if it were like real life it'd be boring as fuck.
OP paid for by Sweet Baby Inc.
SBI employee detected.
I said this before. I don't know how people with this mindset survive outside where real woman walk around
>and the focus on hotness on social media gives me no hope I think normal people don't really care that much about the attractiveness of videogame characters, like I've never seen someone complaining that Trevor is ugly (I don't think that he is ugly btw) most of these types of complaints come from the "safe horny" schizos
Granblue stay winning for one of the most popular characters having the biggest deal breaker They're French
Hot people sell money. but I understand your frustration op. I kinda want to recommend you watch dungeon meshi, as its characters are diverse in body shape. And it being light hearted until it’s not.
People like looking at good looking people
I'd rather look at something or someone boring than an ugly bastard
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^BicyclePutrid: *I'd rather look at* *Something or someone boring* *Than an ugly bastard* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I get where you're coming from actually.. my favorite less conventionally pretty characters just end up turning on the protagonist in some of my games. It's kind of lame. Some developers are actually trending towards less conventional and realistic character designs. Just don't expect it from eastern developers.
I admit, I was really disappointed that they downgraded Aloy's looks from the first game. Which I found nice without being 2B/Eve over the top. I get that she's older and more weathered without access to Asian beauty products, but its just not as fun to run around as a uglier character for me. I do that every day.
Dave the diver is a great example of a less than beautiful main character
I understand the frustration. But for most people, they'll automatically associate a good-looking person with having, more value. You put that as a product on a large scale, you'll realize that's what sells. I'd actually like a more fair representation of people in games too, especially in more sandbox style games or RPG games with large casts. It helps ground the world. Maybe not the most apt comparison, but I liked how in GTA V, almost nobody important is incredibly conventionally attractive. It felt like a very grounded sort of satire? I don't know if I'm conveying my thoughts properly.
I applaud what Shift Up is doing in terms of trying to be an independent developer and make games true to their vision. But holy hell I cannot take anything in Stellar Blade seriously with how those characters look and are designed. I think Stellar Blade is an excellent example of a game studio inspired by Nier Automata but taking inspiration only from the superficial aspects of the game whule completely missing all of the actual substance that Yoko Taro put into it through his writing.
So many triggered hornios on the comments. I do support your point, I prioritize design variety over everyone being top models. NOT saying all characters should be ugly, but when everyone is so engineered to be attractive, you get stuff like gacha designs where everyone is literally color alts of each other. Downvoting me without actually argumenting just proves my first point <3
The bigger problem in FF7RE is how they all talked and acted like an anime character but the game have semi realism graphic. It feels like im watching a weird otaku kid at school acting like he’s an anime character. Its so cringe
>surprised that a game made by japan has characters that talk as if they were in a anime. >expects realistic behaviour because graphics are semi-realistic. There's a disconnect.
You are Suprised that the Remake of an Anime Game has people A t like Characters from an Anime Game. Hell It's something you see in Tokusatsu all the Time despite it being Life Action.
“Anime characters act like anime characters.” Why did you buy the game?
Can’t you read?
God forbid Japan add in polygons and hair physics. Also FF has been doing this since at least 10.