Regardless of your gender, if you’ve ever created a female or femme-presenting player-character–especially in an RPG–you’ve almost certainly encountered an issue that has been plaguing the genre since games first made the jump from 2D to 3D: really, really, really bad hairstyle options for female characters. And look, I get it. Animating a million little strands of hair is difficult and time-consuming, and devs don’t always have the funding to make a ton of flowing hairstyle options with long, luscious locks.
But that doesn’t stop them from attempting to portray longer hair–it just tends to be styled in a convoluted up-do that says, “See, this character totally has a lot of hair, she just spends six hours every morning following intricate Ye Olde Hair Tutorials to ensure her locks will not move no matter how many heavy attacks she takes.”
Now, RPG players are bringing these off-the-wall hairstyles to life via tongue-in-cheek videos depicting the struggle players face when trying to create a female character with long hair. From long ponytails that do not react to physics whatsoever to traffic cone-shaped up-dos, here are some of our favorite player-made takes on female video game hairstyles.
1. Cursed pigtails
No matter when or where an RPG is set, for some reason there always seem to be at least six different pigtail-style hair options, all of which somehow manage to both suck and look wildly out of place, especially when your character is fully decked out in heavy armor.
2. Messy buns
Nothing says, “I am the chosen one, here to save the realm!” like rocking up to the battle looking like an Owlbear just tried to build a nest in your hair. Why accurately emulate the look of historical hairstyles when you can just give ’em the ol’ “haircut courtesy of my five-year-old sister” special?
3. Long, yet impervious to physics
If you do find a long hairstyle, make no mistake: It absolutely will not move. If, by some miracle, it does move, it will move as one singular mega-hair rather than a head of individual strands.
4. Those frickass bangs with a random braid
Nothing says “elegant badass” like a single, tiny braid in the middle of your forehead.
5. Long hair, but make it look short
Inevitably, when you do find a longer hair style, devs will have gone out of their way to make sure it looks weird from just about every angle, with strands that have been twisted, braided, and wrapped around themselves to the point that even getting hit with Storm of Vengeance wouldn’t blow a single hair out of place. These styles are often very tall or wide, to give the appearance of length, while ensuring nobody actually has to animate it.
On the bright side, things are definitely getting better–as much as I struggled to enjoy Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I do have to give credit where credit is due: My character may have looked like a half-melted Bratz doll, but every single strand of her hip-length hair moved individually, and responded appropriately to wind, body movement, and changes in inertia. The most fun I had with that game was watching my Rook’s hair flip around as she dove and dodged in combat. Veilguard also had a phenomenal selection of POC hairstyles, going far beyond the usual “generic fade for men, afro or short braids for women” offerings found in most games. (EA’s Frostbite Engine is the source of the magic behind Veilguard’s great hair physics.)
Still, there’s definitely room for improvement when it comes to hair animation in the games industry. As much as I get a kick out of seeing what lengths studios will go to in order to avoid having to animate long hair, I do hope that more studios–especially those working on RPGs with custom player-characters–take the time to animate hair with the care it deserves.
In the meantime, I’ll be over here trying to figure out where I can get my hands on some of this magical, gravity-defying hairspray that seems to be available to every female NPC in every RPG game ever.
