Here’s the skinny on Minecraft’s new character creator

Minecraft Bedrock (the Minecraft that you get from the Windows 10’s store, and on mobile and console) is testing out the game’s first proper character creator. The beta, which just went live, will finally let players fiddle with faces, bodies, and hair in-game without using mods.

Here's highlights from stream it was announced in.

There are skin tones, facial expressions, hair, and lots more to mix and match. While they’re crafting on the stream a zombie Larry David briefly emerges before turning into a zombie schoolgirl with just a few tweaks. You can even have a rosebush for an arm. If you're keen to do something similar, there are instructions on how to enable the beta here.

It’s slightly off-the-peg, but they do seem to be trying to provide a lot of diverse options. Vitiligo is a skin choice, and you can add prosthetic limbs as well (though I spotted that limbs seem to be paid-for additions, which isn’t great). The plan is to have 100+ free features with additional purchasable options.

External skins are still supported on Windows 10, so you don’t need to bother with this if have something you’re happy with. It’s more of a console boon that works across almost all their games. I said "almost" because it’s not part of the Java release, which is still my preferred flavour of Minecraft. They do mention that can you go to their feedback site and make some noise about that if really want it on the OG Minecraft. Or you can just use one of the many skin editors out there for Java.

Wee disclosure: I've also written for Minecraft.net.