Garry Newman adds necks to s&box characters and admits the neckless design hurt the game

Garry Newman has updated the default player character in s&box — the so-called "citizen" — to include a neck, along with a less gloomy default face. The change comes directly in response to persistent negative reviews calling out the neckless design.

The update adds body customization sliders covering chest, waist, neck, and nose size, plus eye color options. Players who actually liked the neckless look can dial the neck slider back down to zero. Newman was candid about his own feelings: he says he loves the original citizen design and the lack of a neck, but the feedback has been relentless — people hate the character models, and it keeps showing up in s&box's negative reviews. "This isn't what 'fixes' s&box on its own," Newman wrote, "but it is something that comes up consistently in our many many many negative reviews, so it's something that we are addressing along with all the other feedback we receive."

The neck fix is one piece of a larger, messier picture for s&box. Facepunch's UGC platform — pitched as a Garry's Mod successor built for the Roblox era — has been out for five months and is struggling. Community creator Eridium published a critical video titled S&box's Free To Play Weekend Isn't Enough, laying out a list of problems: the still-unpopular citizen models, low-quality AI-generated games flooding the platform and killing discoverability, and what Eridium called Facepunch's "intransigence" on design feedback. Newman responded at length in a pinned YouTube comment under the video, describing himself as stubborn and saying he doesn't like giving up on things — framing it as a genuine mea culpa rather than a defensive deflection.

Newman has acknowledged the AI slop problem on the platform after previously downplaying it in press interviews, and the community seems to be watching closely to see whether Facepunch follows words with action. The neck update is small, but it signals that criticism is landing — whether the bigger structural issues get the same attention is the real question.