Once Human lifts controversial character limit after opening day woes

Once Human developers Starry Studio were quick to remedy an account limitation on launch day for its post-apocalyptic survival game after it was revealed day-one players were being limited to a single character on just one locked-in server.

Once Human went live on July 9 with various issues, some of which were fairly expected, according to a Starry Studio launch FAQ on the Once Human website. Included in the extensive list was a note stating early players would temporarily only be allowed to create a single character per account “due to technical limitations.” Character deletion was also disabled. Starry supposedly planned to add multi-character support in August.

News quickly spread, with players across social media furious they weren’t able to play with friends who selected other servers by making another character. This was only compounded by the fact they couldn’t even delete their new locked character and simply start over. Other limitations included issues with crossplay between each platform, which were also on the docket to be fixed later down the track.

Starry heard the cries from the fledgling Once Human community and pushed update a few hours after launch that added the ability to create new characters—but players still can’t delete any existing ones they made by mistake. “We closed multi-character creation because the experience wasn’t up to snuff,” the devs said in the Once Human Discord server, adding they were hoping to perfect the experience by Aug. 1. Instead, that bold plan “backfired.”

Players are now able to create a character on each server but have been warned the ability to delete a character remains disabled. If you’re starting your first run in Once Human and plan on linking with friends, decide which server you’ll play on first, just in case.

Other features, like certain controller support and tech problems with handheld systems like the Steam Deck, have been noted by devs and is being worked on, but no exact timeframe for a fix has been given. It’s far from the smoothest launch, but it’s hoped most players can now settle in and begin to explore the world despite the bumps.