Dragon Age: The Veilguardgame director, Corianne Busche, assures fans that this time around,Biowarewill “make good” with a character creator that will feature more skin tones and inclusive customization.
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In herinterview with Edge Magazine,Busche admitted that Dragon Age’s character creator, though expansive in its own right, “has traditionally not done skin tones well.”
For years, players have had to settle for fan-made mods thatfix issues with darker-skinned characters, as the base game models weren’t realistic.
To Bioware’s credit,Dragon Age: Inquisitionhad relatively more options than its predecessors, butdarker skin tones were still dwarfed by white ones.
Ethnic hair has also been largely absent from manyDragon Agegames' character creators. Despite the developers' admirable attempt, discussion underReddit user BloxkRunnah’s postproves that the few options available aren’t enough.
Modders have tried to fix this, too, but to no avail, astechnical limitationsprohibit them from changing too much.
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Inclusive Character Creation Design Is Not The Norm
Bioware is not alone in facing criticismfor not including meaningful customization options for people of color. Rather,it’s been an industry-wide problem for many years.
It’s such a common issue that creators like RDCworld1, among others,have satirized it in comedy sketches.
Character customization is such an integral part of the gaming experience that many players spend hours upon hours fiddling around with menus to create their characters.
It’s fair to say that RPGs with great character creatorshave playtimes inflated by tens of hours, even with outdated graphics.
Developers need to understand that, given the chance,players will ignore the devil’s horns, angel wings, and lion tailsandinstead create themselves. After all, Who wouldn’t want to see themselves slaying a dragon or firing off a spell?
Busche and Bioware’s promise has the potential to set a new, better standard for the industry where the responsibility of inclusivity doesn’t fall on gamers via mods after the developers call it a day.
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