What are the skull patches for?

[r-cane]

I just played through the game again and after it it said I unlocked 2 skull patches or something like that (like the ones people wear on their uniforms) and they showed two colours of crew members. But I cant find any significance. Neither do I find unlocked skullpatches on achievements nor do they seem to unlock anything else.

[Kukling]

The boneskull achievements (I mean unlocks)? When you start a game you'll see a pair of small buttons next to character portraits, that allow to change the character into boneskull mode.
No idea if it has gameplay impact.

[SundownKid]

It's a skin, no gameplay impact.

[nekura.ca]

"Hey, who turned out the lights?"

[zamberina]

Originally posted by nekura.ca:

"Hey, who turned out the lights?"

Yes, totally, but please don't. That's just messing with my stress level. Just... don't.

[Azune]

Regular crew meeting specific in-game conditions - it should be related to their specific roles within the team but I'm not certain anymore - will unlock a bone skull skin. Crew wearing bone skull avatars on normal difficulty will unlock their golden skull skins if they survive the trip (it doesn't matter if they landed on Mars as long as they were on the ship at the end of the journey and the ship didn't fall apart). Same thing for crystal skulls, except that they unlock by wearing golden skulls on hard.

Other than being a skin feature adding some additional incentive to unlock the skull sets it doesn't do anything else as far as I know. Beating the game with crystal skulls on medium or hard doesn't give another ending, for example.

The skulls kind of fit the story thematically (the endless loop the crew find themselves in).