Facial Customization

So far, to the best of my knowledge, the entirety of what we've seen of the Guardians has consisted of fully suited and helmeted men and women. There was one pic in the November leak where we could see the upper face of a man wearing some sort of breathing apparatus, but I don't know if he was meant to be a Guardian or some sort of NPC.

Regardless, the faceless Guardians have got me thinking about how much we'll able to customize our own Guardian's facial/physical appearance, if we can at all. We could get full customization along the lines of Mass Effect/TES, or maybe pick from a number of presets, or perhaps we won't be able to customize at all beyond helmet choice.

Reasons for No-Faces
- Bungie could save development time by not having to create a facial customization engine, and could ease performance by reducing the number of polys on a Guardian model.
- To recreate the "slip into your character" theme they had going in Halo with the Chief/Rookie/Six. If you never see a face, you can more readily put yourself in your Guardians shoes.
- FPS. If Destiny's an FPS, then you'll rarely see your Guardian's face, helmet or no helmet. Then again, I never saw my EVE Online character, and they have a full customization suite. Also, Bungie has called Destiny an FPS, and although we've seen in-game third-person shots that appeared to be from a player-controlled camera (specifically the PS4 trailer, 1:23), I'm inclined to believe that those were created with a dev tool, and won't be in the final product. No evidence for that, just a feeling.

Reasons for Faces
- With all the RPG elements we've seen so far (armor/weapons, levels, etc.), a full appearance customization seems like a natural progression.
- It would make sense to be able to create a unique face to set your Guardian apart from everyone else's.
- If they are making faces, I doubt they're as presentable as they'd like at this point in development.
- More helmet designs (e.g. visors, goggles, rebreathers, etc.)

So what do you think? Will we be able to customize our Guardian's faces? What about their body (buff, skinny, scars, color, hair, etc.)?

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The third-person view is all but confirmed for the City, as far as I'm aware.

Also, the latest magazine to talk "in-depth" about Destiny (EDGE, if I'm not mistaken) said there would be no face-customization, but I think that could still be far too early in development to be confirmed as a no-go.

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If this is supposed to be everything they wanted Halo to be, it would make sense to keep the face hidden in a helmet or mask a la Master Chief.

I can't remember where, but I read that Bungie did that because it makes it easier for the player to imagine themselves as the hero. That was years ago, so take it with a grain of salt.

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I haven't seen anything in EDGE that said there wasn't, but in the IGN article it says:

"Besides unique weapons, every piece of your kit will be your own, from your helmet to your cape to your armor pieces to your face."
Source

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Oh boy, I hope they didn't make a mistake there. I always love it when I can customize my character to Nth degree.

(Also, I'm glad someone brought this topic up. I was just thinking of it last night.)

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Honestly, that's the only thing that sucked me into White Knight Chronicles for as long as it did. Mmmm, customization... (We are not allowed to discuss my time paying for a character creator... I mean, uh, City of Heroes.)

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Honestly, that's the only thing that sucked me into White Knight Chronicles for as long as it did. Mmmm, customization... (We are not allowed to discuss my time paying for a character creator... I mean, uh, City of Heroes.)

Haha, I totally relate! I love character customization, be it in stats or appearance. I remember even seeing multiple reviews/playthroughs of White Knight Chronicles while I was debating getting it. Even though it looked a little disappointing gameplay and story-wise, I still seriously considered it because of its in-depth character creator. Madness! (Wisdom!?!)

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Haha, I totally relate! I love character customization, be it in stats or appearance. I remember even seeing multiple reviews/playthroughs of White Knight Chronicles while I was debating getting it. Even though it looked a little disappointing gameplay and story-wise, I still seriously considered it because of its in-depth character creator. Madness! (Wisdom!?!)

I'll spend hours just fiddling with a character customizer. The more options you give me, the more hours I'll sit there playing with it. I wasn't fond of the gameplay of WKC, and the story was 'meh,' but I consider it money well spent just from how long I was playing with my character.

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I'm the same, I love seeing a character I customised appearing in cutscenes or just walking around in the game world. It was cool when if was just armour with Reach, but it was even better with games like Mass Effect or Guild Wars 2. Dragon's Dogma is another good one, notable in that you can customise a second character as well as your PC :P

That being said, I seem to remember reading a second-hand summary of a magazine stating that faces will not be customisable in Destiny. If that's true, I'll be rather disappointed.

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I'm the same, I love seeing a character I customised appearing in cutscenes or just walking around in the game world. It was cool when if was just armour with Reach, but it was even better with games like Mass Effect or Guild Wars 2. Dragon's Dogma is another good one, notable in that you can customise a second character as well as your PC :P

That being said, I seem to remember reading a second-hand summary of a magazine stating that faces will not be customisable in Destiny. If that's true, I'll be rather disappointed.

Ditto on all counts. I got a kick out of seeing my Cousland in all of the Dragon Age: Origins cutscenes (RIP Emric ;( ), and Noble 6 as well (RIP Unnamed ;( ).

And my Commander Shepard (RIP Jared ;( ).

And my WoW character (RIP Haddren ;( ).

And my Dragonborn (RIP Rollan ;( ).

And my... Well, you get the point.

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I'd guess they'll have full customization.

You'll be able to have whatever kind of helmet or hood you like.

Or maybe both!

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Two things will happen when I make a character with a custom face:

-Something that looked good in the editor will look terrible in cutscenes, and I'll find a good looking helmet or gas mask to hide my mistake.

-My character's face will look great, but there's no stat bonus for going helmetless. Therefore, I have to fight the urge to leave my character's head bare, and I usually give in.

So, Bungie, hope whoever you have working on custom armor can do a schnazzy set of gas masks.

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Yep. That's what happens to me in Mass Effect, Fallout, or Skyrim. I could spend hours tweaking jaw bone height and dirt color, but do I really want to give up +10% health or 20% better archery? (Nope!)

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-Something that looked good in the editor will look terrible in cutscenes, and I'll find a good looking helmet or gas mask to hide my mistake.

Especially with future-tech games, I'm very disappointed when they don't work in some way to be able to change the look of your character mid-game.

It would also make a fun moment when you meet up with someone who wasn't aware of your surgery:

"Guardian! There you ar... oh, sorry, your armour looks like someone I know."

"No, it is me! I've had some work done. What do you think?"

"You should have left it how it was."

"Ouch!"

HAhahahahah!

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-My character's face will look great, but there's no stat bonus for going helmetless. Therefore, I have to fight the urge to leave my character's head bare, and I usually give in.

Ugh... I have to fight the urge to don a helmet of +3 smiting, not the urge to leave my character's head bare.

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