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There is something about making the perfect avatar; whether it’s the satisfaction gained from starting the perfect build, or the joy that comes from having a billion knobs and sliders that’ll enable you to make either a replica of yourself or a monstrosity a mother couldn’t even love. Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds character creation is fairly robust, with all the little dials and stats an avid RPG fan needs to craft their character exactly as they want them.

Attributes provide basic passives and boost specialized skills.

Attributes are your generalized statistics, akin to the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system found within Fallout. You have Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Perception, Charm, and Temperament to choose from, with each starting at “Average”. There are a bunch of specialized skills associated with each one, allowing you to focus on the attributes that will compliment your desired playstyle.

You get six points to start, but dropping an attribute to “Below Average” will confer an extra point at the cost of a permanent penalty. Attributes cap at three points, and each point invested will boost both the passive stats associated with it (like carry weight for Strength), and the specialized skills that fall under it (you’ll have more points in the Dialog skills, for example, if you dump points into Charm). All attribute points must be spent before you can move on to your skills, meaning you can’t make a character who is outright Below Average at existence. I know, this saddens me as well.

Skills are where you start to specialize.

Skills are fairly straight-forward in concept: the more points dumped into a particular skill the better it will be. There is some nuance, however, when creating a character in The Outer Worlds. Firstly, specialized skills come grouped within core skills: Melee, Ranged, Defense, Dialog, Stealth, Tech, and Leadership. Under each core skill are the individual specialized skills themselves.

So, say you put points into the Melee category: both 1-handed melee and 2-handed melee will receive increases. You can only place skill points into a core skill up until a specialized skill reaches 50 total points. At that point you can increase a specialized skill only by directly investing skill points within it. Skills also unlock passives and abilities for every 20 points invested.

This will matter more later in the game; during The Outer Worlds character creation you won’t have any specialized skills above 50. Instead, you will have two skill points available to spend and can place them in two core skills (you can’t pick the same category twice). Each specialized skill within your chosen core skills will increase by 10, so use this opportunity to grab some potential early unlocks, like selling to vending machines or sneak attacks.

Aptitudes provide your character a backstory and minor bonuses.

Once your skills are squared away you will be asked to choose an Aptitude: I.E. a backstory. There are 15 total, and each has a small stat or skill increase associated with it. You could pick one to better min-max your build, but ultimately these are here to add some extra seasoning to your avatar.

Appearance: time to make a beauty, or a beast.

Now that you have picked a backstory it’s time to mold your character in your image. Or not: there are plenty of sliders and options available for players to tweak, allowing for a variety of both gorgeous and hideous creations. If there is one drawback to the appearance options on offer it’s the inability to alter your character’s body: just the face in The Outer Worlds.

That said, there are a healthy number of options. To start:

• Gender
  • (Male or Female; none of the below options are gender-locked)
• Face
  • Presets for: Head (15), Skin Tone (19), and Eye Color (26)
  • Sliders for: Brow Horizontal, Brow Forward, Brow Vertical, Eye Horizontal, Eye Size, Eye Vertical, Jaw Vertical, Mouth Size, Mouth Vertical, Nose Size, Nose Tilt, Nose Width, and Cheeks.
• Hair
  • Presets for: Hair Style (30), Hair Color (50), Eyebrow Style (34), Facial Hair (9), Facial Hair Color (50)
• Features
  • Presets for: Makeup (41), Dirt (10), Scar (14)
  • Slider for: Age

The Outer Worlds character creation may not feature the most robust appearance toolkit, but what is on offer still provides enough to allow players some freedom in designing their character. For those that can’t be bothered there is a randomize option (and it is not biased about what it slams together), and you can also reset to defaults as needed.

Finally, Name and Summary.

You’ve finished crafting your…thing, so it’s time to give it a name. This is rather straightforward: you get a 16-character limit, so go nuts. First name, last name, one giant name, gibberish; it’s your call.

Once you confirm your name you’ll be taken to the Summary page. Here all of your choices will be displayed, and you will be able to review your selected attributes, current skill points, skill unlocks, chosen aptitude, and finalized appearance.

If you are happy with everything you’ll click “next” to enter the game proper. If there is something within The Outer Worlds character creation that went awry then you have to go back and fix it: no going directly to the desired menu here. Your choices won’t reset as you retreat, though, so don’t stress having to make edits.

For more The Outer Worlds guides check out our guides page!

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