FromSoftware's games have been using the same basic foundation for the character creator since Demon's Souls. Each entry makes minor tweaks to how it functions, and one of the biggest changes was the addition of facial deformation in Bloodborne. This was not accessible by the player: it was there so that NPC characters could be created whose faces showed the toll of repeated blood infusion.
If you haven't played Bloodborne, no spoilers, but it turns out that the wonder blood of Yharnam maybe ain't all that.
The feature remained in Dark Souls 3 (which was released after Bloodborne) and has now been found in Elden Ring by longtime Souls expert and dataminer ZullieTheWitch. As you can see below, this thing basically lets you create Shrek in seconds.
- The co-creator of Dark Souls' most ambitious mod resurfaces to inform me that Blighttown, source of my nightmares, was cobbled together with '10 bits of wood'
- Elden Ring Nightreign director didn't want to 'encroach too much' on the lore fans hold sacred by including Dark Souls bosses, but admits 'I thought it'd be kind of fun'
Unless you're Zullie, you can't access this in Elden Ring—yet. The fact it's already in there however means that it's likely to be unlocked via mods soon enough, then we can all run around gurning at Margit.
It's only fair to point out that Elden Ring's character creation system is by far the most full-featured, and can produce a huge variety of looks. Indeed, one of the things I admire about the studio's approach to character creation is that it's quite difficult, without going to the extremes, to make a character that doesn't feel like they fit in the world.
Nevertheless, Zullie's discovery does show that character creation here is, whatever the improvements, still the same (perfectly good) system underneath. And hey, anything that vaguely resembles some aspect of Bloodborne on PC will always get my blood pumping.
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