2025 was a year of highs and lows for me. Not for personal or professional reasons, but rather because I got weirdly obsessed with the height of videogame characters. It started with the surprising revelation that every FromSoftware protagonist outside of Elden Ring Nightreign is exactly 5'7", a fact I learned from a YouTube investigation by FromSoft savant Zullie the Witch.
I'd always assumed FromSoftware protagonists were taller than this. I'm not sure why, but it's probably due to how Anglo-American entertainment media has programmed my brain to perceive heroic archetypes as tall, dark and handsome. So finding out that all FromSoft's dodge-rolling warriors are the same height as me was surprising, leading me to think more deeply about how we represent height in games.
