Roblox walks back some of its dramatic changes to avatar faces, but not enough to make everyone happy

Ever see the movie Face/Off? John Travola and Nicolas Cage swap faces because one of them is a cop and the other is a terrorist and the cop is doing this big undercover thing that all goes wrong because nobody thinks that maybe they should write this stuff down in case the three people who know about the plan die in an untimely fashion. (Guess what happens next.) Anyway, the terrorist has a grand ol' time with his new face but of course the cop isn't so upbeat about it, and that kind of sums up the state of things with Roblox and its players in the wake of the decision to remove "classic" faces from the Roblox Marketplace.

The looming change came to light earlier this week, in an announcement about Roblox's "marketplace policy for heads." In a summary, Roblox Corporation said "all Classic Head and Face combinations will be replaced with a corresponding Dynamic Head in February 2026. The Classic Heads and Classic Faces categories will then be removed from the Marketplace."

The Roblox community was not universally happy with the news, for two main reasons: Some said they just don't like the way the new Dynamic Faces look, while others are angry about the potential loss of money they've invested into Classic Faces. Even among people who don't seem too bothered by the change, there's a sense that Roblox could've avoided the headaches and made everyone happy by supporting both Classic and Dynamic Faces.

That doesn't seem likely. Roblox said its "avatar ecosystem" has grown unwieldy over the years, which has limited its ability to "deliver new capabilities for our users and our creators." The move to Dynamic Faces is part of a shift to "a unified schema for all avatars where all heads and bodies are compatible and we can layer new capabilities on top." It also reassured Roblox users that steps are being taken to ensure backwards compatibility, so animations will work properly on both R6 and R15 avatars, a point some members of the community had expressed concern over.

Still, it's clear the blowback caught Roblox by surprise, as it subsequently released an update that's clearly aimed at calming the waters. After thanking everyone for their "input on the importance of unmoving faces for some users," Roblox said it will add a toggle allowing users to disable animations on all Dynamic Faces, will add a Dynamic Head counterpart for every Classic Face targeting "1:1 visual parity," promised that Limited Heads, including "serial numbers, transaction history, and trading behaviors," will not be changed, and said it is taking steps to simplify the creation of heads with the Classic look for content creators.

Not everyone is happy with the compromise: It's close but, as several users have pointed out, not quite exact.

Ugly jagged lines around the madbot 10000 mouth from r/roblox

Whether Roblox will be willing to take further steps to preserve Classic Faces remains to be seen: I wouldn't bet on it (if there's one thing my Windows 11 experience has taught me, it's that tech companies love to change things just for the hell of it), but if the uproar continues, it may decide that there's simply no choice but to give up.