Let's see those Mount & Blade 2 characters

(Image credit: TaleWorlds Entertainment)

The most important part of any RPG is the part where you nudge nose and chin sliders for an hour, and Mount & Blade 2 is blessedly full of those. Aside from being good in general, the medieval sandbox's character creator is quite powerful, offering enough flexibility to create a guy who could at least be Geralt's cousin, Meralt.

I especially appreciate that M&B2 includes asymmetry sliders so that you can add a little of the crookedness that gives characters their character. No one has perfectly identical features. Except Meralt, but he's special.

My advice for making likenesses, if you want to take advice from the creator of a so-so Geralt, is to start with a reference image in a profile view. Looking at a face from the side can help you get more of its basic proportions and topography right from the beginning. After you've matched the profile, switch to a front reference and focus on the spacing of the eyes and widths of the nose and mouth. Finally, reference an image with the character turned about a quarter of the way to the side and adjust the cheekbone height and width.

Or just make up a character who doesn't look like a popular silver-haired monster hunter. Likenesses can be a bit distracting.

They always look better in the character creator, don't they? (Image credit: TaleWorlds Entertainment)

Either way, it's always fun to appreciate the slider artistry of others, so if you've also been tweaking nostrils and eyelids, let's see it! To share, you can upload a screenshot of your M&B2 character to a site like Imgur and post a link in the comments of this article and/or in this forum thread. Let's inspire each other to throw away all our progress and make new characters, and then again, and again, before eventually settling because we have to play the game eventually. (Or do we?)

If you're new to the M&B series, also check out our guide to how to play Mount & Blade 2, which I'm going to need after I'm done with more nose tweaks. Steven also has a list of tips from his first several hours playing. (After playing the tutorial, the tip that tournaments are a great way to make money "if you're good at combat" feels like a kick in the gut. Meralt is more of a talker than a sword guy, it turns out.)

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.