Why can’t we create obese avatars?

Usually when you play a game with a customizable character, your avatar ends up looking like an idealized version of yourself. But what about those of us who want a warts-and-all avatar? Joshua Dennison at Pixels or Death wanted an avatar with a pot belly, but found no games to fulfill this desire. The closest he got was in Fallout: New Vegas.

Finally, a fat face! But Dennison’s character did not have the body to match.

He adds:

Sweet frijoles! It looks like I molded a G.I. Joe out of Silly Putty and now we’re just going to plop on this oddly ripped fellow in a t-shirt. Look at those guns! Seriously, we can have intelligent discourse about this article and we can disagree about some of the points, but don’t try and tell me that face belongs on that body.

In developers’ defense, there have to be limits. After all, characters have to actually fit in the game world, and more seriously, there are programming constraints that have to be adhered to for the characters to interact with that world correctly. We joke that Bethesda’s games are glitchy and unplayable, but you haven’t seen anything until you try to take Dom DeLuise for a stroll through Tamriel.