Homogenous Character Design

S

SimpleMinded

Vault Fossil
So I try and shy away from one trick pony topics but I saw this picture and felt it was worth discussing. Below is an image of main characters in a variety of games that have come out recently. If you notice, most of the main characters look the same. Has anyone else noticed the craze for bald grizzled men? Any ideas WHY this is in such style right now?

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Mods: Any suggestions as to how to shrink the image and make it visible? If I make it just a visible image it's pretty big
 
Shaving their heads and growing beards is their way of dealing with all the generic rage and their mysterious dark past.
Don't judge, man.
 
Its due to the "tough guy" association people have with the bald military chic look. Not to mention that some of the characters happen to be a part of some sort of a military. It is also simple and low maintenance and practical, but thats not really an issue for gaming.
 
Kane & Lynch hardly count as they're both balding middle-aged men, the general problem are the hard-ass Jason Statham clones, not the old men with no hair and dudes like Agent 47 who're bald because they're clones that can't grow hair jah.
 
I've actually noticed this trend in the american movie industry as well. It may have been something a little more simple that was sparked off from say, Pitch Black and the Chronicles of Riddick... If anything, I'd say thats what allot of the sci-fi games are emulating... some, to a lavish degree (Crysis)
 
If the culprits behind this "development" were to be put in a line-up, you would find Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, Bruce Willis, Michael Chiklis and some skinny little bloke who represents the lazy game developers out there.

Do you know how easy it is to give a character model this look, from a graphical perspective?
 
We don't, enlighten us.

Also, Assassin's Creed? Neither the protagonist nor his ancestor are bald. And I think you can edit the hair length in ME.
 
Maphusio said:
I've actually noticed this trend in the american movie industry as well. It may have been something a little more simple that was sparked off from say, Pitch Black and the Chronicles of Riddick... If anything, I'd say thats what allot of the sci-fi games are emulating... some, to a lavish degree (Crysis)
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Riddick may well be an trend setter rather than part of the trend, but it's probably mostly a product of the fashion of the times.
 
Haha yea Assassin's Creed, like Mario are probably some of the more joke-ish ones in the list but you have to admit that a lot of them look pretty streamlined. It could be simply that rendering realistic hair is harder than just removing hair altogether.

While you can justify some characters having short hair a la Agent 47 because he's a clone or the others being military, it still seems to be a dearth of creativity and limited willingness to make more diverse character designs.

Bald = mature. Rahhh!
 
It's usually not the will of developers. Publishers and Marketing Geniuses usually force things "that sell", encouraging cargo cult behavior.
 
It's usually not the will of developers. Publishers and Marketing Geniuses usually force things "that sell", encouraging cargo cult behavior.
Click to expand...

Hey, it flies, right? Soo.. the next, logical, step would be--

7N.jpg
 
Wooz said:
It's usually not the will of developers. Publishers and Marketing Geniuses usually force things "that sell", encouraging cargo cult behavior.
Click to expand...

I think that's what happened with Fracture, the hero had longer hair originally I think.
 
I wonder if it's a secret anti-anime thing. I mean really Western (American and European) vs. Eastern (Japan) games is a big rift.

Everyone's seen the long haired protagonists in JRPG's. Most of them to the point of being unrealistic from a functional perspective.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
Hair is piss hard to render boi, remember that shit in Clive Barker's Undying? Patrick Galloway's hair looked like it was alive.
 
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