As someone who's spent more hours than I care to admit sculpting digital avatars, I can tell you that character creation is pure magic. It's this little portal where I get to decide who gets to be the hero, the villain, or the hapless explorer. For me, it's almost always a version of myself—a generic-looking guy with brown hair and eyes that are more hazel than green, if I'm being honest. It's my go-to, my comfort zone. And for the longest time, it was easy. Too easy, maybe. Because the tools were built for someone like the old, default me. But here's the thing they never tell you in the tutorials: the real challenge isn't making someone look like you; it's making someone who feels like you. And for millions of us, a huge part of that feeling is perched right on the bridge of our nose.

Now, let's be real for a sec. The conversation about character creators being... let's say selective... is older than some of the games in my library. We all know the drill. The endless sliders for one type of facial structure, the skin tone palettes that forget whole spectrums of humanity, and the hair options—oh, the hair options. Don't even get me started. It's 2026, and we're still seeing menus with twenty variations of straight hair and then, tucked away like an afterthought, maybe one or two culturally specific styles. It's like the developers think, 'Well, we checked that box, right?' Spoiler alert: it's not enough.

But today, I'm gonna put that massive, important conversation on the shelf for a moment. I'm gonna use my privilege pass to rant about something that seems so simple, so trivial, and yet is weirdly, persistently absent: Where in the world are all the glasses?

Seriously. It's the little things, you know?

I've Got 20/20 Vision for This Problem

Maybe you've never noticed. If you don't wear glasses in real life, it might not even register as a missing option. But for those of us whose world goes soft and blurry the second we take them off? It's glaringly obvious. There are so many games where I simply cannot make a character who looks like me.

Games set in the modern day? Usually fine. If it's got cars, smartphones, and a vaguely recognizable city, chances are you can slap some frames on your avatar. It's part of the reality package. But the moment we step out of that reality—into dragons, spaceships, or cosmic horrors—myopia and astigmatism seem to get magically cured by the game's lore.

Take some of the biggest, most celebrated RPGs out there. We're talking about games with customization so deep you can adjust the width of your character's nostrils.

  • Baldur's Gate 3? Nope. Not a monocle in sight.

  • The Elder Scrolls VI (yeah, it's finally here as of 2026)? Still nothing. My Dragonborn can shout mountains apart but can't get a prescription for reading ancient scrolls.

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And the excuses... oh, the excuses. 'It's a medieval fantasy setting! They didn't have glasses!' Okay, sure. But they also didn't have healing potions that work in three seconds, magic staffs that shoot lightning, or, I don't know, literal dragons. If we can suspend disbelief for all that, why is a pair of lenses the bridge too far? It's fantasy! Invent them! Call them 'Ocular Enhancers' forged by dwarven craftsmen or 'Sight-Crystals' mined from magical geodes. Problem solved.

Then there's the sci-fi angle. We've got games set centuries in the future where we casually zip between star systems. The argument often goes, 'Well, surely they've cured bad eyesight by then!' Have they, though? In the chaos of colonizing new worlds, fighting alien menaces, and reverse-engineering ancient tech, laser eye surgery was the top priority? It feels less like a lore reason and more like... an oversight. A convenient one.

The Heroes Who Got It Right (And Why We Remember Them)

This isn't a hopeless crusade. Some games have nailed it, and they're forever etched in my memory because of it.

When a game includes glasses, especially in a setting where they shouldn't logically exist, it does two things: it adds immense style, and it makes the world feel more grounded and lived-in. It tells me that the developers thought about the people who would inhabit their world, not just the archetypes that would adventure in it.

Game Setting Why The Glasses Rule
Bloodborne Gothic/Victorian Horror The pince-nez and round spectacles add a layer of scholarly madness that's just chef's kiss. Even monster hunters need to read their eldritch notes.
Cyberpunk 2077 Dystopian Future Glasses are part of the fashion. They're tech, they're armor, they're a statement. It just makes sense.
The Outer Worlds Space Colony Satire Of course a corrupt corporate colony would make you pay for vision correction. The glasses are a perfect, cynical touch.

But the champion, the absolute gold standard for me, will always be Fallout: New Vegas.

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It wasn't just a cosmetic option. Obsidian baked glasses into the very mechanics of the game with the 'Four Eyes' perk. Take your glasses off? -1 Perception. Put them on? +1 Perception. It was a small, brilliant piece of RPG design that acknowledged a simple truth: for some of us, glasses aren't an accessory; they're a vital tool. I can't tell you how many times I fumbled a crucial VATS shot because I'd swapped headgear and forgotten my specs. That moment of 'Oof, I can't see a thing!' was so perfectly, frustratingly real. It wasn't just representing my look; it was representing my experience.

And that's really the heart of it, isn't it?

We talk about representation in big, important terms—and we should—but it's also in these tiny, personal details. Glasses are a part of my character. They've been on my face every single day since I was ten years old. They're the first thing I put on in the morning and the last thing I take off at night. Without them, the world is a beautiful, impressionistic blur. So when I step into a game to be the hero, to save the world or explore the galaxy, I don't want to do it with 20/20 vision if that's not who I am. I want to do it as me.

So here's my plea to the devs making the games of 2026 and beyond: let us have our cool little spectacles. Let us have our goggles, our monocles, our high-tech visors. Don't just add them as a sticker on the face. Think about them. Make them matter, even in a small way. Because when you let me see my reflection—flaws, prescriptions, and all—in your digital hero, you're not just giving me a cosmetic option. You're letting me truly step into the role. And that... that's the real magic of character creation.