Pokémon GO’s inclusive avatar update criticized both in Japan and overseas 

Niantic’s April 17 update of Pokémon Go overhauls the game’s avatar customization options, as well as the default appearance of avatars. While the update aims to allow players to create more realistic characters by adding a wider range of inclusive customization options, the way the changes were executed has caused dissatisfaction among players both in Japan and overseas. Unable to make avatars to match their aesthetic anymore, many players are asking for the changes to be reverted. 

As of April 17, Pokémon GO players can edit their in-game avatars in far greater detail than before, with the body customization section now containing separate settings for weight, muscle mass, as well as shoulder, chest and hip width. Detailed color options are available for editing skin tone, hair color and eye color, and there are new hairstyles and facial features to be chosen from. As indicated in the X post above, the update this time around aims to allow players to make avatars that more closely resemble themselves. 

While all these changes sound promising on their own, the way they were implemented is being heavily criticized by players, many of whom were startled when they opened up Pokémon Go post-update and saw how it affected the avatars they know and love (comparisons seen below). The most frequent complaints are of “sickly” skin tones and characters’ faces being strangely stretched and disproportionate, with neither a distinctly feminine nor masculine look being achievable. The new avatar physiques are also causing dissatisfaction – characters appear to have slouched posture and longer torsos than before, and female Pokémon Go players are reporting that they can no longer create a body with wide hips, a shapely butt or a narrow waist. 

Some of the issues being highlighted likely have something to do with the fact that you can no longer choose the gender of your avatar in Pokémon Go. The decision to remove gender selection was probably meant to allow players to create anything between a fully masculine/feminine character to an androgynous one, but the way it was executed seems to have resulted in most combinations of features looking unbalanced and unconvincing. The overall look of the avatars seems to have shifted from an idealized, anime-like style to a more realistic look, which is also not a popular choice. 

Additionally, users have been reporting bugs such as avatars’ clothes clipping through their bodies, and one user got stuck with a bald avatar that no hairstyle could fix. 

As a result, it seems most Pokémon GO players are in favor of going back to the old avatars, or Niantic making a big series of improvements to the new ones. 

Pokémon Go is available on Google Play and the App Store.