Game character design is a collaborative process, involving writers, designers, artists, programmers, and other developers. With several teams involved, a structured, well-aligned approach is crucial. Combine storytelling, visual artistry, gameplay mechanics, and technical skills to design a video game character. Effective character design balances creative vision with gameplay needs while achieving thematic consistency and emotional resonance. Keep reading to learn the six steps to design a video game character.
1. Align the team on the character’s identity and purpose
Align your team on each character’s identity and purpose to give characters clearly defined personalities, backstories, motivations, and in-game functions. Video game character creation is a collaboration, making team alignment meetings necessary to establish characters’ identities and purposes visually, narratively, and thematically. The creative director works with narrative designers, artists, and game designers to bring each character’s appearance, personality, backstory, and gameplay to life. This process breaks down into the steps below.
- Figure out where in the universe the character fits. Video game characters are a mix of aesthetics, writing, animation, gameplay, and (sometimes) voice acting. Consider where they fit into the game universe and its existing cast when creating a new character. Game worlds and characters within them have a tone that can only support a certain bandwidth of character writing without stretching plausibility and damaging immersion. For example, the Overwatch universe is an intellectual property (IP) with a wide bandwidth of existing character types and themes, but it still has limitations. Overwatch supports character design and writing in any science fiction or science fantasy archetype. Players will notice something is wrong if you attempt to place a pure medieval fantasy caster character (for example) in this sci-fi setting.
- Decide the role (archetype) of the character against the cast and crew. Each video game character fulfills a role within the game, both in terms of their character identity and their functionality. When we think of a memorable game character, we think of their highest level personality traits and in-game functions—two elements that create the character’s archetype. Garrus Vakarian is an honourable marksman, Varric Tethras is a loyal spy, and Astarion is a troubled rogue. Creating a character’s archetype is no accident. Writers, developers, and directors must look at what they already have (and what the setting needs) before writing a new character. For example, Varric was initially supposed to be sleazy and untrustworthy, however, the narrative team at BioWare changed his character when they realized they had enough oppositional NPCs and needed someone to stand up for the player character.
- Have the narrative team flesh out some basic concepts with words. Writers can generate rough drafts much faster than artists, animators, or other game developers. Words quickly and effectively transmit ideas about backstory, character, appearance, and mechanics. Artists, animators, and game mechanics designers can visualize the essential elements of a character from a well-written, concise concept document. The writing team establishes where the character fits in the story, what their personality is like, and even describes and suggests visual elements for the art team. A well-written explanation of a character’s attacks and weapons inspires design teams without overwhelming them with fixed imagery or animations.
- Have artists and designers flesh out some basic mechanics, visuals, and attacks. Artists and designers can take the words of the narrative team and interpret them visually. As artists and designers flesh out the character, any shortcomings or conflicts with existing characters will come to light. At this stage, creating the character is still a collaborative experience, and artists and designers continue to go back and forth with the narrative designers. The characters’ theme and personality inform and influence their attacks and mechanics. Have you created a silent, wiry, dark-clothed ninja in soft shoes? Well, it probably doesn’t make sense to have that character’s attacks and mechanics be noisy and conspicuous, for example.
2. Start visual development of character and mechanics
Start the visual development of the character and mechanics once you’ve established their identity and purpose. Video game character design is iterative, and concept art renderings help the team visualize elements before realizing the design in-engine. A character’s visual development encompasses facial expression, character silhouette, color palettes, character costumes, and features.
Rough visual development sketches, quick concept sketches, moodboards, and concept art drafts are the starting point for a character’s visual identity. The art direction team works with the writers and creative lead to peel away elements that don’t fit, expand on those that work, and finalize parts of the design. The aim is to create concept sketches with all the elements finalized, and then start working on mechanical sketches and motion diagrams to demonstrate the characters’ movements, mechanics, and powers.
3. Begin in-engine prototyping
Begin in-engine prototyping when you’re ready to evaluate game feel and mechanics, but not ready to begin full production. With the core concept clearly defined, you can use 3d assets with basic textures to sketch out rough mechanics and game feel. Your model and mechanics will require more polish if creating assets for a vertical slice or showcase. Use mannequins or capsules instead of fully realized bodies if your prototype is purely for internal use. Rough animations and VFX work as placeholders for internal testing, while assets closer to final production are required for showcase material.
Test how the prototype performs its core abilities using basic 3d models, mechanics, animations, and VFX. Prioritize functionality over polish at this stage, using script stubs to simulate cooldowns and simple UI elements to track statuses and health/energy/magic meters. Test your design against AI or PvP on a test map. Feedback after each session, saving each version of the prototype under a different name. As you refine the core abilities, polish the game feel by adding pauses, camera shakes, and other elements.
4. Refine design of a game character
Refine your video game character design as you get closer to the final build. The character’s core fantasy should be clearly represented by now, and the refining process involves tuning the visual identity to transmit the character’s theme, personality, and in-game functions. The process breaks down into the following steps.
- Draft model. The model you create for the character doesn’t need to be 100% complete, but it must transmit the character’s archetype, personality, and visual identity. Polished animations and high-resolution textures can come later. Now is the time to make sure your mockup conveys the core visual elements like face, color palette, anatomy, and costume/weapons.
- Draft mechanics. Based on your playtests and feedback, decide on the version of the character that best fits the project’s gameplay and theme. You must balance the character’s power and abilities against other playable characters in a PvP context, or against the enemies/hazards in a PvE game. You must also stay within the thematic parameters of the project. Different games have different bandwidths. For example, Super Smash Bros has a wider berth for wacky characters and movesets than Street Fighter or even Mortal Kombat (which gets pretty wacky).
- Draft animations. Your character must have a complete set of animations at this stage, but final polish can come later. Focus on creating a clear functional blueprint that shows how the character moves, responds to stimuli, and expresses emotion. Block out movement that communicates the character’s role, archetype, and personality. Make these core animations the foundation for polish later.
- Draft VFX. The VFX for your character’s attacks and actions at this stage must match the colour kit and style guide, but the 100% complete, polished version can come later. Focus on the high-level features of the VFX for now. Does the effect effectively transmit the action it accompanies? For example, does the explosive attack look sufficiently devastating, the healing spell sufficiently benevolent, or the debuff spell sufficiently disadvantageous? FPS games use many of the VFX shown below to add more impact to every shot.
Discuss character relationships and backstories with the project’s narrative team as you refine the character’s visual identity. Designers and writers can create a positive feedback loop, using each other’s work to refine details.
5. Finalize character design
Finalizing your video game character design means getting your model, animations, mechanics, systems, and VFX to 100% shippable quality. You and your team must look at your character’s backstory and original mood board to assess if your final design coherently transmits the intended fantasy. This is the final pass, so you’re looking for color palette harmony while working on the final illustration detailing. Animations and VFX must align with their gameplay functions. Placeholder effects and animations aren’t good enough at this stage; production-ready assets only.
6. Deploy the finalized character into the game
Deploy the finalized character into the game by exporting it from your creation tool and importing it into your game engine. Make sure the model, animations, logic, and assets are correctly imported, integrated, and functioning as intended. The process varies depending on the game engine, but generally follows the steps below.
- Replace placeholder assets. Replace the placeholder character in-engine with your final model, animations, and textures.
- Configure your character. Make any final tweaks, double-check that all placeholder animations have been removed, and that the licenses have been purchased. Likewise, ensure that only final textures, shaders, and materials are used on the character. Your character’s shape and size may have changed since prototyping, so be careful and retest hitboxes, collisions, and consider if more expensive features, such as ragdoll physics, look good with the final art.
- Integrate with game logic. Integrate your character design using C# scripts in Unity. Use blueprints or C++ to integrate your design into Unreal Engine. Add any extra polish to the final character, such as connecting mechanical feedback, custom dynamic equipment, etc, to your character model.
- Test. Place the final character asset in a game scene or level to check animations, performance, and interactions. Replay the entire game with the new character. Don’t be discouraged if there are issues. This usually takes several iterations to get right. Check for any glitches with textures, posing, and collisions.
- Package. Once fully tested, optimize the assets of your character design to include it in the build process.
Where to get ideas for a game character design?
Get ideas for game character design from literary sources, historical resources, and film and television scenes. Literary sources like Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Robert E. Howard’s Conan series define many of the fantasy tropes common in gaming today. Novels and short stories by H.P. Lovecraft have had an enduring influence on otherworldly horror in video games. Frank Herbert’s Dune and Asimov’s Foundation have an equally monumental impact on science fiction games. Read these classics to see what ideas they inspire.
Historical resources are also an excellent place to get ideas for game character design. Fantasy RPGs, RTS, and adventure titles draw on historical references from the early medieval period to the late Renaissance. This period allows you to mix Viking aesthetics with 15th-century, Neapolitan clothes, weapons, and culture. Mashing historical references together or bolting them onto another setting inspires interesting character ideas. Warhammer 40K’s mix of space opera with Roman and Soviet militarism creates special character design potential. Horizon Zero Dawn’s cyber-dino Stone Age analog similarly mashes together unexpected settings to create unique character potential.
Get ideas for game characters from films, television series, comic books, or any other storytelling media. A film’s character design can directly influence a game character, like how Solid Snake is largely based on Snake Plisken from John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. The influence can be a more subtle nod, like your lawyer in GTA Vice City, Ken Rosenberg’s resemblance to Sean Penn’s character in Carlito’s Way.
What are popular video game characters?
Popular video game characters are Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Master Chief, Pikachu, Lara Croft, Pac-Man, and Link. Popular game characters have a form and function we instantly recognize. Mario is a mustachioed plumber, Sonic is a high-speed hedgehog, Master Chief is a futuristic Spartan warrior, Pikachu is an adorable monster with electricity, Lara Croft is an action-ready explorer, etc. The designers of these characters knew not to overcomplicate things. The appeal and fantasy of playing as these heroes is instantly recognizable.
What makes good game character design?
Characters with emotional depth, connections to the game’s narrative, believable relationships, and interesting backstories work best for story/character-driven games. In action-oriented games, factors like visual design clarity, animation fluidity, and unique abilities and mechanics are crucial elements of character design. A character’s silhouette recognizability becomes important in fast-moving games with many elements onscreen. The theory is to keep the player character distinct from any background layers, enemies, or VFX, so the player feels connected and in control at all times. Bullet Hell-style shooters are an example where the player character’s sprite silhouette must be clear and trackable across the entire screen.
Character design doesn’t have a clearly defined good and bad. Different designs work for different audiences and contexts. Undertale’s low fidelity characters work to make the complexity and nuance of the narrative feel more apparent. The simple color-coded characters of Among Us work because of the game’s unique underlying betrayal hook. The character designs in Stellar Blade don’t appeal to some Western audiences despite broad popularity in Korea.
How to learn game character design?
Learn game character design by studying courses at major online learning hubs like Domestika, Udemy, and Coursera. Studying life drawing, anatomy, history, 3D modeling, and digital art software allows you to create characters, iterate on your creations, and build a portfolio. Character design is a module in many game design courses offered at universities and colleges.
