That MMO with the amazing character creator is free to keep right now
Grab Black Desert Online while you can
All I really know about Black Desert Online is that it has an amazing character creator, and that's why I instantly claimed a free copy when I heard that the makers are giving it away right now. I've since read that the fantasy MMORPG is a pretty fun game too? But in all honesty, I'm downloading it mostly to make pretty/weird/monstrous wizards.
First of all, the character creator is enough of a feature that the Korean YouTube has a running series giving characters makeovers. Observe, the many tweaks revamping this lad:
It is a very good character creator. It has the same face-tweaking settings as many other games you'll have played, all lots of sliders and colours and options and things, but get this: the end result can actually look good, rather than inspiring some sort of Uncanny Valley dread. And those sliders and bits are extra good, even offering options to rearrange a preset hairstyle by dragging locks around.
Or if you can't be fussed with faff, the creator has a button to browse through a gallery of characters made by other players. With a simple click you can load their look, and usually are free to further edit them yourself. While there's a pretty defined aesthetic to the most popular skins, lots of pouting porcelain dolls, sometimes you will inexplicably stumble across a character like her ↑ up top to remind you that oh goodness yes you can make monstrous characters too.
Our Graham also had fun with horrors way back in beta.
Oh, right, and there's a game attached to this character creator too? Our Black Desert Online review in 2016 called it "a truly memorable MMORPG", and it's grown a lot since then. The latest word from us is that it's one of the best MMORPGs still.
You have until Wednesday the 13th to claim a copy of the base game free for keepsies. Grab it either from the game's store or on Steam. It usually only costs £9, but free is free. All this is to celebrate the launch of a new expansion.
Looking for more freebies? Check out our list of the best free PC games to play in 2024.