History Main / ConcealedCustomization

** PowerArmor helmets and some additional headgear (ski masks, welding masks, raider wastehound helmets) in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' cover the entire face. Some outfits, such as Radiation Suits or the Chinese Stealth Armor, cover the entire body including the head.
** ZigZagged in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}''. PowerArmor helmets still cover the head, and both powered and non-powered armor still covers the body, but since the armor itself is also customizable, your character can still look unique.

** Speaking of the full armor sets: the number one complaint about them is that they all have non-removable helmets which cover Shepard's face entirely. Since most of the game's {{cutscene}}s occur while (s)he's in his/her armor, this can cause some...strange situations, such as Shepard being able to drink liquor through his/her faceplate, or people recognizing Shepard by sight despite the fact that (s)he's dressed head-to-toe as a Collector.
** Wearing a helmet with a face mask also causes Shepard's voice to sound like it's coming from a speaker which can get annoying at times.

** In the case of ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' however, the trope is turned on its head. While there are helmets to obscure your carefully crafted face, during the beginning of the game, your starting state is that of an Undead. Wrinkly and really ugly, you cannot wait to reach for that helmet as soon as you get one. Just to throw more insult, none of the starting class headgears fully conceal your Undead face (except for male Thief mask). The only way to see the face properly? Reverse the Hollow state and become Human. [[OhCrap Which carries the risk of being invaded by another player if you choose to do so]], not to mention lacking headgears hurts your defense. Fortunately, There is a half of a dozen [[NiceHat nice hats]] to choose from, that usually are rather light. Most players feel that style is more important then effect, so you will be seeing a lot of these, especially since helmets have the least effect on stats compared to other gear slots.

* ''VideoGame/RetroCityRampage'' parodies this by giving you a large number of customization options such as barbers for different hairstyles, tattoo parlors for tattoos as well as different types of eyewear you can buy, but the only place they'll ever be visible in is in dialogue portraits because of the [[{{Retraux}} 8-bit aesthetic]] lacks the necessary amount of detail to show any of it on the main character sprite.

* ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'' averts this by way of a menu that allows you to select your character's costume parts separately from their actual equipment.

* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' gives you the ability to create a player skin in which every pixel is custom designed. While the helmets aren't full-face, a full suit of armor means your face and hands are the only part of that skin you worked so hard on that can be seen, and for many texture packs, not even that. And even when not fully covered (either because you don't have a full set or because the texture pack you're using drew the armor to cover less), the armor often clashes with the player skin. Its unadvisable to fight monsters without armor, and certain resources can only be gained by killing monsters.

* Played straight in ''DemonsSouls.'' The game features quite a robust face-customization, but helmets very often obscure them when you do get it. Thankfully, early helmets aren't all-obscuring, and later helmets are made of [[CoolHelmet cool]], so everybody wins.

** [[spoiler:However, this trope comes in full force once the player goes through a sizeable chunk of the game's storyline. Why? Because until that specific moment the players have no clues that they are HumanAllAlong, controlling an AnimatedArmor via AppliedPhlebotinum. Who'd knew that having access to your Character Customization screen so late in a game could be such a spoiler?]]

* ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'': All helmets erase the hair and most helmets cover the face as well. Especially glaring because your armor bonus depends on wearing armor over all parts of your body, so skipping the helmet because you want to show show your character's face means you're going to take a hit on your entire defense.

[[AC:{{MMORPG}}s]]

[[AC:RolePlayingGames]]

[[AC:Sandbox]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' allows you to toggle the appearance of the helmet on your character without losing the stat increases that the item gives. Certain helmets also act as a visor and using the /visor command lets you flip the visor up or down to reveal part of your face.

* VideoGame/DragonsDogma plays this mostly straight - you can spend forever making a good face for yourself and your main pawn, then put on a helmet and you can't see any of it, but only when you're out in the wild parts of the world; the vast majority of masks, hoods and helmets have the visor flip up so your face isn't covered when you're in a town.

* Played straight in DemonsSouls. The game features quite a robust face-customization, but helmets very often obscure them when you do get it. Thankfully, early helmets aren't all-obscuring, and later helmets are made of [[CoolHelmet cool]], so everybody wins.

* ''VideoGame/TempleOfElementalEvil''; luckily, helms have no in-game effect, except for the magic ones (and most of them are headbands).

* PowerArmor helmets and some additional headgear (ski masks, welding masks, raider wastehound helmets) in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' cover the entire face. Some outfits, such as Radiation Suits or the Chinese Stealth Armor, cover the entire body including the head.

Games that try to avoid OnlySixFaces often offer a wide range of [[CharacterCustomization customization]] options for the player. This can be achieved by letting the player choose from a palette of pre-made faces, or, like many newer games, letting them change single elements of the face with sliders, thereby making it theoretically possible to create thousands of different faces.

Then the player decides to play a warrior, and after ten minutes of playing he finds his first helmet. Which covers the character's face entirely. Wait, why did we spend half an hour at character creation again?

Usually, you can take it off again if you don't like this, but, depending on the [[NintendoHard difficulty of the game]] and the usefulness of the helmet, this may be a bad idea.

* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' (almost only vanilla), although the player can choose not to display it or transmogrify it into a different helmet of the same armor class.
* ''MapleStory'' has several face-obscuring helmets, but, graciously, they're limited to the lower levels. And there are still more helmets than there are faces. The most obvious example was an animal head mask in previous versions that you got at an early level and had great stats, but completely hid the character's face, making all characters of a certain class look alike. In later versions, the use of this helmet has become less widespread, though. One would believe this is done to encourage players to purchase more aesthetically pleasing premium NX equipment (including a set of invisible armor) that allows you to wear no helmet or a better looking helmet while still gaining the bonus stats of said equipment.

* ''GlobalAgenda'', though there's something like 20 helmets per class per gender, and then colors you can layer on, but you undoubtedly spent a long time making your first character's face, and there are vastly more face-customizing options than helmets. Once you get your first helmet, you often never see your face again.
* ''DCUniverseOnline'' averts this by way of a menu that allows you to select your character's costume parts separately from their actual equipment.

* Optionally averted in ''StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', where face-concealing helmets are common, but one of the appearance options removes the head slot item from your character's appearance while still giving you the mechanical benefits.

** In the case of DarkSouls however, the trope is turned on its head. While there are helmets to obscure your carefully crafted face, during the beginning of the game, your starting state is that of an Undead. Wrinkly and really ugly, you cannot wait to reach for that helmet as soon as you get one. Just to throw more insult, none of the starting class headgears fully conceal your Undead face (except for male Thief mask). The only way to see the face properly? Reverse the Hollow state and become Human. [[OhCrap Which carries the risk of being invaded by another player if you choose to do so]], not to mention lacking headgears hurts your defense. Fortunately, There is a half of a dozen [[NiceHat nice hats]] to choose from, that usually are rather light. Most players feel that style is more important then effect, so you will be seeing a lot of these, especially since helmets have the least effect on stats compared to other gear slots.

* Optionally averted in StarWarsTheOldRepublic, where face-concealing helmets are common, but one of the appearance options removes the head slot item from your character's appearance while still giving you the mechanical benefits.

* {{Minecraft}} gives you the ability to create a player skin in which every pixel is custom designed. While the helmets aren't full-face, a full suit of armor means your face and hands are the only part of that skin you worked so hard on that can be seen, and for many texture packs, not even that. And even when not fully covered (either because you don't have a full set or because the texture pack you're using drew the armor to cover less), the armor often clashes with the player skin. Its unadvisable to fight mosters without armor, and certain resorces can only be gained by killing monsters.

* ''DCUniverseOnline'' averts this by way of a menu that allows you to select your character's costume parts, which is independent of their equipment.

* Averted in DCUniverseOnline, as the appearance of a character and the effects of their costume are not necessarily the same.

* ''GuildWars'' suffered from this, but it was since changed so that displaying the headgear could be turned off, without losing its benefits.

* Not even an hour into ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' will pass before you procure your first helmet, wasting your hard-spent moments creating the perfect nose for your human noble. At least the game automatically removes helmets during conversations. A popular mod for the PC version also allows helmets to appear unequipped only to be automatically equipped for combat and when you open the menu. It's not without its bugs, however.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' included a feature that allowed the player to hide his/her helmet while keeping it's stats.