Dragon Dogma 2’s character creator will have you customizing for hours

Ahead of the quickly approaching March 22 release date for Dragon’s Dogma 2, CAPCOM has shared a first look at the character creation menu. The video is only 20 seconds, but that’s more than enough time to recognize the game’s customization options are endless.

The official Dragon’s Dogma page tweeted a 22-second video featuring footage of the character creator in Dragon’s Dogma 2 on Jan. 8. The video begins by showing some sliders being adjusted for an Arisen’s (the player character in Dragon’s Dogma) ears being edited, and the ear sub-menu alone has seven different sliders: Style, Size, Angle, Openness, Tilt, Tips, and Lobes.

Some other head customization options can just barely be made out in the background, with players able to adjust the head, skull, brow, eyes, nose, ears, chin, mouth, and jaw. Assuming the other facial features received similar amounts of attention as the ears did, we can expect a minimum of around 63 different sliders for facial features alone.

The video also shows some fur options being adjusted, which has 11 different sliders on its own. The other body menus are difficult to make out, but it looks like there will be seven different areas in which adjustments can be made. Following the ear formula once more, there will likely be a minimum of 50 different sliders that allow you to customize your character’s body. This would mean a likely total of over 100 different sliders for character customization in Dragon’s Dogma 2, which if you’re anything like me means about 100 hours spent tweaking.

Perhaps the most exciting portion of the showcase comes at the end of the video when some kind of preset mixing technology is shown. From the looks of it, you will be able to enter a menu that allows you to quickly and clearly select different presets for specific areas individually, almost like an “A or B” eye exam.

This system looks like it will immediately adjust to the selections you’ve made previously, so you’re only shown options that might pair well with the selections you’ve made so far. It’s hard to tell exactly how the intuitive pairing system will work, but it seems to be a middle ground between selecting a preset and creating a custom appearance.

This system will be a saving grace for most players, as the video also confirms that you will be customizing the appearance of your primary Pawn in addition to the Arisen you play as, similarly to how you customize your Guardian in Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m more than willing to spend dozens of hours customizing my character, but when it comes to a Pawn, I’m more than happy to sit back and choose from adapting preset options for a faster workflow.