Mecha Break’s player creation marketplace is incredibly cool, but painfully limited

Despite the fact that you don’t see much of your character in Mecha Break, the PvP mech shooter has a god-tier character creator, which allows you to tweak everything from your pilot’s height and hair color to the length of their fingers. This character creator is supplemented by the Matrix Marketplace: an in-game store where players can sell or auction off their painstakingly customized pilot designs in exchange for Corite, the game’s premium in-game currency.

On the surface, this seems like a really neat idea, especially because the game’s standard seasonal cosmetic store has a very small selection of items that rotate out every three days. If you spot a pilot with cute pigtails, for example, you can’t just go into the cosmetic store and buy that exact hairdo, as it’s very unlikely that a specific hairstyle will be available for you to purchase at any given time. You might find another cool hairstyle for sale, but it probably won’t be the one you’re looking for. Thus, you have two options:

You might think Option #2 is the best choice, but unfortunately, it comes with a catch. You see, once you’ve purchased another player’s custom pilot look, you’ll get to use it on your pilot. You will not, however, be able to edit it in any way, shape, or form. The hair color cannot be changed, and the hairstyle itself can only be used in conjunction with the rest of the purchased pilot’s features (collectively referred to as a “style” in-game). You can’t wear the hairstyle by itself — you can only wear the full style, essentially becoming a clone of another player’s pilot, right down to their face and body shape.

This is great if you just want a sort of cosplay skin for your pilot, as the Matrix Marketplace is full of interesting customizations that can make your pilot look like a specific character from an anime, movie, or video game, and will save you the work of spending endless hours trying to build them from the ground up by yourself. But if you’re just looking for a specific hairstyle, makeup type, or accessory, you’re pretty much screwed. You can only edit the player-created custom pilot designs you purchase in the Matrix Marketplace if you already own the cosmetic items being used in the design, which would require you to purchase those items from Mecha Break’s standard in-game cosmetic store, which defeats the purpose of buying a player-made style to gain access to a cosmetic item that isn’t currently available in the seasonal cosmetic store.

Unless you somehow get lucky enough to unlock all the cosmetic items you need via direct purchase from the rotating styles listed under the Seasonal Cosmetics tab, you’ve got no choice but to wait around for the right cosmetics to pop up, or take the L and change your character’s entire look, just to use the hairstyle, iris/pupil design, or makeup style you want. I’ve been hoping to get my hands on a cosmetic that would give my pilot heart-shaped pupils, but it’s not available for direct purchase in my seasonal cosmetics store, and the only version of it that’s currently for sale in the Matrix Marketplace is locked to a pilot design that includes short brown hair and facial scarring. It’s a really cool look, but it’s not what I’m going for. I just want the eyes!

The ability to sell your creations to other players for in-game money is a really fun concept, and is a great way for Mecha Break to highlight its incredible character customization options — a feature that can be easily missed in a game that devotes most of its screen time to giant robots. I’ve listed a few designs for sale (no bites yet, unfortunately), and I am all for giving players the tools they need to create the character of their dreams.

The problem is that players also need the freedom to use those tools, and freedom isn’t something Mecha Break allows for when it comes to attaining cosmetics. The game lets you customize the heck out of your pilot, but if there’s a specific premium cosmetic you’re in search of, you’ll need either the patience of a saint or a great deal of luck to actually get your hands on all the items you need to create your ideal pilot.

As fun as the Matrix Marketplace is, the fact that the cosmetics are locked to one specific color and pilot design is unbelievably frustrating, and I’m struggling to understand the reasoning behind it. I’m sitting here practically begging the game to take my money, but I’m not going to spend it on a player-made creation when what I get in return is a completely un-customizable pilot who has the right hairdo in the wrong color. It feels like buying a Barbie who has all of her clothes fused to her body, unable to be worn by other Barbie dolls unless I get lucky and find additional versions of the same accessories for sale.

The most frustrating part of all of this is that all of the items I’m currently hunting for were fully available to players during Mecha Break’s multiple beta tests, and could be purchased using Mission Tokens, a free in-game currency earned just by playing the game. Amazing Seasun Games made it clear that items like outfits would need to be bought with Corite, but until the game’s launch, players were under the impression that they’d have access to a much wider array of customization options. I got used to customizing my pilot’s hairstyle, iris/pupil shape, eye color, and makeup exactly how I wanted it using only Mission Tokens. Now I can’t even get what I want with real-life cash, and the options to customize certain cosmetics — like eyeshadow and lipstick color — has disappeared entirely.

Mecha Break’s Matrix Marketplace has other issues, too — you can sell just about anything, including weapons and items that make life easier in the game’s signature Mashmak mode, leading to accusations of pay-to-win mechanics, and the auction house is a bit of a mess. But that’s a discussion for another day. For now, I just want a way to get my hands on specific cosmetics without having to cross my fingers and wait indefinitely, or completely change my pilot’s entire look.

Then again, things could always be worse. At least Mecha Break’s hairstyles aren’t distributed via randomized loot boxes.