Giving Gamers of Color the Power to Truly See Themselves
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2025 8:25 pm
At Afrime Studios, our obsession with detail isn’t just technical, it’s cultural. As a Black-owned game studio, we’ve built the Unyverse Character Creator to do what most games don’t, let gamers of color fully see themselves in-game. As a celebration of Juneteenth we've decided to share some of our work with you.
The full game is in early production but we've taken it out to players 4 times (2x at GDC, Dream Con 24-25) and the response has been emotional and excited about how the final game will develop. We like to build in public.
From textured hairstyles to realistic foundation and face paint sliders that actually work on darker skin tones, we’ve prioritized features often overlooked by mainstream devs. It’s not just about inclusion, it’s about ownership of identity. Our final character creator will expand to cover many other races with as much attention but for us, we had to get this right because nobody but us is trying.
We've also launched an afrofuturistic cosmetic mod in Ark Ascended to test how players from all backgrounds are interested in more diverse looks. We've reached 1000 downloads just this week without any UA, or marketing.
Unyverse is being made for PC and Console. Launch date tbd.
The full game is in early production but we've taken it out to players 4 times (2x at GDC, Dream Con 24-25) and the response has been emotional and excited about how the final game will develop. We like to build in public.
From textured hairstyles to realistic foundation and face paint sliders that actually work on darker skin tones, we’ve prioritized features often overlooked by mainstream devs. It’s not just about inclusion, it’s about ownership of identity. Our final character creator will expand to cover many other races with as much attention but for us, we had to get this right because nobody but us is trying.
We've also launched an afrofuturistic cosmetic mod in Ark Ascended to test how players from all backgrounds are interested in more diverse looks. We've reached 1000 downloads just this week without any UA, or marketing.
Unyverse is being made for PC and Console. Launch date tbd.