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I am examining protagonist design in action RPGs, and my conclusion so far is that fixed, authored protagonists consistently allow for deeper and more effective storytelling than blank-slate customizable avatars.

FromSoftware is a good example. Bloodborne, Dark Souls and Elden Ring use fully customizable characters with no identity, no voice, no past and no personal stakes. Sekiro uses a defined protagonist with a personality, a voice, a history and emotional motivation. The difference in narrative potential is enormous.

Based on this pattern, my bias is clear: authored protagonists create stronger narratives. What I want is to understand the design and production reasons behind the alternative.

My question for developers and narrative designers is:

Does choosing a customizable blank protagonist inherently limit the narrative structures a game can support? And to what extent is this choice simply a way for studios to avoid the cost and commitment of developing a strong, defined character?

More detailed sub-questions:

• Does the lack of a defined protagonist reduce opportunities for character arcs, internal conflict and emotional stakes?

• Does customization force the story to orbit the world instead of the protagonist, weakening narrative cohesion?

• What production factors push studios toward blank protagonists (voice acting cost, animation complexity, fear of alienating players, etc.)?

• And critically: how often is this choice driven by resource constraints or risk aversion rather than creative intent?

From the outside, customization sometimes feels like a shortcut that avoids writing a protagonist with depth, voice, history, animation demands or narrative consequences.

I am not pretending to be neutral here. I believe authored protagonists are better for narrative strength. But I want insight from people in game development: How do studios actually weigh these trade-offs, and how much narrative potential is sacrificed when choosing a customizable avatar over a defined character?

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It really has nothing to do with cost. Creating a character customization system that offers plenty of options is a lot more expensive than just creating a static character model.

The main argument for using the Featureless Protagonist is that it makes it easier for the player to project themselves into the character. A well-developed character will have views and opinions that might conflict with those of the player. Their decisions and actions will not always be those the player agrees with. This can lead to cognitive dissonance when the player tries to identify with them.

And this also works in the other direction: RPGs are about giving the player freedom (or rather the illusion of freedom, but that's a whole different subject...). But this freedom can collide with the characterization of the player-character. For example, when the player has the protagonist do things that seem wildly out-of-character for them. Then you might end up with some jarring ludonarrative dissonance. A featureless protagonist helps here, because in that case it's up to the player to decide what is and isn't out-of-character behavior for them.

Which of course doesn't mean that an RPG with plenty of meaningful choices can't work with a well-defined protagonist. At least if you have good writers on board who can come up with plenty of options that cover most player intentions and still make all of them seem in-character. Some famous examples are the The Witcher and the Red Dead Redemption games.

And then there are also games where the protagonist is highly customizable and of malleable personality, and yet has a place within the game world and a character arc tied into the larger narrative of the game. Like the Mass Effect trilogy or Cyberpunk 2077.

So neither choice should be considered inferior or superior to the other. It's just one of many design decisions to be made when developing a game.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ The thing about Mass Effect in this case is that Commander Shepard is still a pretty well-defined character. Shepard is a highly trained special forces soldier with a couple of player-defined background story beats that have their impact later on in the story, but beyond those beats, Shepard isn't like, say, a player character from an Elder Scrolls or Dark Souls game without any backstory. And to a lesser extent this also applies to V from Cyberpunk: V already has his own network of allies and friends when you start the proper Cyberpunk story. \$\endgroup\$ Commented 4 hours ago

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