Starfield may have beautiful landscapes and detailed cities, but the reason why the characters have such creepy smiles is that one movement feature wasn’t added to contract the orbicularis oculi muscle when they smile.
No game will ever be perfect, and while Starfield has many stunning features like landscapes and cities, excellent character creation, and an expansive world, some features will surely give you nightmares—especially when some characters smile.
Usually, when a character smiles, you can see it light up their face or the happiness in their eyes, but that’s not the case for the characters in Starfield. Instead, when they smile, it looks fake and quite creepy.
Apparently, there’s a reason for it too. Delaney King, a character and tech gaming artist who has worked on titles such as Dragon Age and Stellaris, claims one of the reasons why the character’s smiles look so terribly fake is because their orbicularis oculi muscle, the muscle just below the eye area, doesn’t contract.
Other facial muscles are supposed to lift when you smile, but when they don’t move, you’re left with this creepy, fake smile that’s hard to look at at the best of times.
Now, if you don’t look at the Starfield characters and simply close your eyes whenever you talk with one, you can pretend they don’t have nightmare-inducing smiles. However, you may find this problematic because Starfield boasts dozens and dozens of NPCs and quest characters. Thankfully, most of the characters have stoic expressions most of the time, so you won’t have to come face to face with their smiles.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a bug; their faces are designed that way. So, unless Bethesda updates the facial features, we’ll have to endure these half-baked smiles.
Or better yet, just don’t do anything nice that would warrant a smile from another character in your next Starfield playthrough and you won’t have to see it again.
Published: Sep 10, 2023 11:42 pm