gender locked in 2025??

please for christ sake how is it possible to have gender locked characters? i cant play female characters because i just dont like it and cant emphasise with them so i cant play half of the classes.

please i beg add anything so we can change the freaking gender. i want to play a sorcerer or a necromancer and not a sorceress or witch...

Honestly, just play the game.
Path of Exile does not use custom characters. Each class is a specific character with a fixed identity, story, and antagonist. Gender is part of that, just like their voice, background, and personality. You are not meant to self insert, you are meant to experience that character’s journey.
It is almost 2026. Picking a class to play should not be this big of an issue. Gameplay, builds, skills, and endgame matter far more than whether the character model is male or female. If you like how a class plays, play it. The gender does not change the mechanics, power, or enjoyment unless you choose to let it.

Doubling the number of models and rigs would be disastrous for their artists' productivity.

They would need to go back and update every armour set MTX in the shop & included in current or past supporter packs. They would also need to do substantially more work for each new armour set MTX created going forwards. This is very far from being a small ask. Given how important armour set MTX are to the company's bottom line, it seems unlikely they would ever choose to do this.

Especially when you factor in the number of people who play with the client zoomed out to the maximum setting, with the dialogue muted, while listing to music, a podcast, or a YouTube video.

on the flipside, i come from the mindset that we should just be able to select any character model when creating a new character.

i had many ideas on this topic but my current best solution is at character select, players have one new checkbox. "Special". if selected it allows players to use any model of any class. there is a minor disclaimer stating that using special mode may not represent the character's lore etc.

this way people who love character identity still can use the base model as usual.

and people like me who dont care can enjoy looking however we want.

there is the argument that character identity is important.

i would retort. in diablo games it is. and the character identity is strong, but this is mainly because classes have class restricted gear. POE does not. the only recognizable cosplay is when players dress up as a character in their base model form without any gear. black long hair girl in rags? witch! fully decked out person in shavrones wrapping? doesnt necessarily have to be a witch, could be a templar aurabot.

this suggestion would use the LEAST amount of effort on GGG's part but would make a whole lot of people happy.

and people who opt in, already are warned that its immersion breaking. but we would happily opt in anyway

Who even cares?

You will be full armoured in act 2.

And you're supposed to use MTXs anyway (and there are free ones).

-1.

Just play the game, who cares if its a woman, a man or a combat helicopter? For god sake this kids nowadays.

https://youtu.be/N64zp_3vnT4?si=GC5zMPbBFA3rmxzg&t=37

As you can CLEARLY see in this youtube clip, the character models gender is distracting from the immersive storyline. How can we be expected to appreciate the nuances of our progression?

^ Rofl

i really find it interesting to see how this topic has been brought up many times.

one of the common responses are who cares/its a non issue. - its a dismissive response. its been reposted and requested by many. so it is an issue that players do care about.

then theres the people who say "you cant see your character anyway" - TRUE but at the same time are we trying to tell the devs to just change our character into a circle and put zero costs into developing cool looking character models? a lot of money comes from supporter packs. which relates to how a character looks. do you not want GGG to earn more money?

and speaking of that. if players could choose a character model that they preferred, they would have more attachment to their character as they like how the character looks. and hey hey hey~! LOOKS. if you like how your character looks, you might want to beautify your character more. that ties back into cosmetics.

more money for GGG!

but yeah, its easier just to shit on suggestions that you dont like. even if it could make the devs more money.