Nintendo Switch Sports: How to Customize Your Avatar and Unlock More Options

Here's how to use the Nintendo Switch Sports customization tools to create a character that you're happy with, and how to unlock more options.
Here's how to use the Nintendo Switch Sports customization tools to create a character that you're happy with, and how to unlock more options.

Customizing your avatar to create a convincing video game version of yourself has always been a core part of the Nintendo Sports series. It’s no different in the latest edition, Nintendo Switch Sports. Seeing yourself out on the field or in the alley is part of the fun.

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This Nintendo Switch Sports guide tells you how to use the in-game customization settings to create an avatar that you’re happy with as well as how to unlock more options.

What Can Be Customized in Nintendo Switch Sports

After picking an account to use, you’ll be taken to a screen that looks like the one in the picture above. This customization menu is where you’ll initially set what your avatar looks like by changing settings in Face & Hairstyle, Outfits & Accessories, or Body.

The first two customization options on the list have four additional sub-categories under them to change the finer details of those aspects.

Face & Hairstyle Customization

There are four tabs at the top of the screen that tell you what aspect of your character’s face and hair you’ll be customizing: personal traits, hairstyle, eyebrows, and facial features. Personal traits are things like gender, age, skin color, and eye color. There are three age ranges to choose from in each gender, as well as a range of skin tones and eye colors.

Pressing the R button will take you to the next customization tab, hairstyles. This is where you’ll choose the type or color of hair you want your avatar to have. These range from straight long hair to ponytails or shorter options.

Pressing the R button again will let you customize how bushy or thin to make your eyebrows. The last tab is a bit of a catch-all, with these choices being things like make-up styles, freckles, or types of facial hair.

Outfits & Accessories Customization

There are four tabs at the top of the screen just like in Face & Hairstyle menu, but these choices relate to customizing clothing options instead.

The first tab is the full outfit that a character will wear with the last three being accessories. After picking an outfit, pressing the R button will take you to choices for hats. After that comes glasses. The final customization tab in this menu is lower face accessories.

Body Customization

This is where you can choose between using a Mii or the game’s characters, Sportsmates. Nintendo Switch Sports can pull any Mii saved to your Nintendo Switch console. The customization options for Miis are more robust than Sportsmates at the moment. If you’re having trouble making a character with the available options, you can make and use a Mii.

Nintendo has teased animal bodies for future updates; there is a squirrel avatar on the Nintendo Switch Sports website. This is likely the place where you can choose animal bodies when they’re added, but we’ll update this article when that happens.

Title and Name Customization

The last two options in the initial customization/creator menus are not as drastic as before, but they are still a way to add a unique touch to your Nintendo Switch Sports character.

Name is taken from the Switch profile name, but you can change it for Nintendo Switch Sports. Title is specific to this game; it’s a combination of phrases or words that is displayed above your name in matches.

Other Nintendo Switch Sports Customization Options

After you’ve done all of that customizing, you can start playing the game. However, that isn’t all the customization options available. From the main screen, there is a hanger icon in the bottom right that will take you back to the character customization screen.

This is where you can change any of the previously chosen aspects of your character, as well as two additional options to customize: Stamps and Equipment.

Stamps are little stickers that are used to communicate in-game. Four of them are available immediately, with two being vaguely happy, one applauding, and one looking defeated. Equipment is the various pieces of equipment that your character uses in-game. The type of volleyball, racket, or sword used can be changed after unlocking new options.

How to Unlock More Customization Options

Unfortunately, most of the tabs mentioned above won’t have any options in them at first. They’ll need to be unlocked through playing the game. More specifically, they’ll need to be unlocked through playing the online mode. Playing locally against CPUs or friends and family will not unlock customization options.

After each online match, you’ll be awarded points for playing, plus additional multipliers based on the factors of the game. For example, if you score more than five strikes in Bowling, that will grant an additional point multiplier. After earning 100 points, you’ll receive a token to spend for a random item in a set.

Spending one token on one of the available sets will grant you a random item from the set. The items featured are chosen from a pool; there will be items in your set that are not in other people’s sets. For example, the Full Beard was in my set instead of the Cloth Facemask.

You cannot receive an item twice, so you’re guaranteed to get every item in the set eventually. Sets do expire, so if you want to complete a set, you’ll have to play enough to finish the set before that time comes. Collecting every item in the set earns you both outfits shown on the side of the set.

That’s how to personalize your player character as well as unlock more customization options for them in Nintendo Switch Sports. Keep an eye on our Nintendo Switch Sports tips page for any future guides or articles, like tips for winning at every sport.


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