How to change your name

A simple guide on how to change your and the protagonist's name

Why this guide?

Once you’ve chosen a name for your protagonist and yourself, it cannot be changed in-game. However, you can still change it by editing your save file with a hex editor like HxD. This guide will walk you through the process.

Save file location

Open the Run utility (Win + R) and enter the following path:

%AppData%\Sega\METAPHOR\Steam\76561198012757492

The game's autosave is named save0000.sav, I do not recommend editing that one.

Backup your saves before proceeding. I am not responsible for any data loss.

Edit your save file to change your name

Download and Install HxD

We'll use HxD as the hex editor to modify the save file. HxD can be found by searching online for an official download page.

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Backup Your Save Game

Before making any changes, go to your save game location and create a backup, just in case.

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Start HxD and Open Your Save File

Open HxD and load your save file. Look at the right column (decoded text) to find your current name near the top of the file. Mine was located at offset 60. Select all the hex values related to your name, including the trailing 00.

For example, the name 'Will' has the following hex values:

57 00 00 00 69 00 00 00 6C 00 00 00 6C 00 00 00

Each hex value represents a character. In this case,

57

is ‘W’,

69

is ‘i’, and so on.

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Create Hex Values for Your Desired Name

Use an ASCII-to-Hex converter to create hex values for your desired name.

For each character, add three trailing double 00s. For example, the hex code for 'Alex' is

41 6C 65 78

. The final hex values should be:

41 00 00 00 6C 00 00 00 65 00 00 00 78 00 00 00

Important!

You don’t want to change the size of the save file. If your new name is a different length than your old one, follow these steps:

If your new name is shorter, pad the end with additional 00 00 00 00.

If your new name is longer, add extra 00 00 00 00 sequences to the search value that you'll replace.

Example

Shorter Name
If your new name is 'Bo', the hex values would be:

42 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00

Since 'Bo' is shorter than 'Will', add

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

to the end of the 'replace with' value when replacing the old name.

Longer Name
If your new name is 'Donald', the hex values are:

44 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00 6E 00 00 00 61 00 00 00 6C 00 00 00 64 00 00 00

Since 'Donald' is longer than 'Will', you’ll need to add the extra 00s to the 'search' field when replacing the old name (2 extra characters = 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00)

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Replace Old Hex Values with the New Ones

Press CTRL + R to open the Replace window and go to the Hex-values tab. Enter the old name's hex values in the Search for field and the new hex values in the Replace with field. Set the search direction to All and, optionally, check Prompt on replace to confirm each replacement. Click OK to proceed.

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Save Your File

Press CTRL + S to save your changes. If everything was done correctly, your new name should now be visible (you can check it immediately on the load screen).

Credits

There is a now deleted post on Reddit, made by a deleted user, who suggested editing the save file. However, it was with a different program and it didn't work for me. It did got me on the right track for this solution though. So, thank you, unknown person.

[lulubanzai]

It worked! Thank you so much!

Just an FYI if you named both the protagonist and the player the name as I did by mistake lol...

The first name you will see in the hex editor will be the protagonist's name. My character's name was Will so it showed W...i...l...l...

After that when you search for other strings with the same letters/numbers, you will see that now you have 2 "W...i...l...l..."s (in your case, the name you used).

So the first W...i...l...l in the row is the Player Name and second W...i...l...l is the Protagonist Name.

[OneGoodReason]

Oh and to add, if you see the name appearing only once in a spot, that is the Protagonist's name, and you'll need to rename those as well.

[OneGoodReason]

For people who chose the same name for both the player and the protagonist, here's a trick for telling the difference: it appears they are always saved within a couple lines of one another, and the protagonist's name comes BEFORE the player. The player's name is always below the protag's name.

So if you want to rename your protagonist only, look for the locations where your name shows up twice, and rename the FIRST name.

You may find it helpful to quickly make a new game with two distinct names to see this for yourself (which is how I figured this out).

[BeautifulDead]

I cant get this to work at all, it changes the save file name but my characters name gets changed to travelingboy

[VP]

Sorry to hear that. Until the developer implements name changes in an update, or a proper mod comes along, I’m afraid there’s not really a fool proof solution.

[ρerειrα]

Well, just updating, tried changing every instance ot the name on HxD, didn't work. It resets when loading the save. Also, the savefile's name didn't change on any of my tries.

[Snowy]

I tried it and it works but only in the language I started playing. So If I replace every instance of "Will" it works in english. But if I replace every instance of "Wilhelm" (which is the german default), it doesnt change the name in game. The same with the playername.

This is a problem as I chose to change from english to my native language german and now my playername is just "du" ("you" in english) which I'd like to change to my name.

[Francky]

For anyone finding the issue with it resetting after you edit the name and then load/save the game, as per this guide....that is because this guide is only showing you how to edit the save game name (which happens to be your character name)....you will find in the hex editor the name of your character 4 times in your save file....you need to change them all for the change to stick and change properly...just use the search function to search for the first letter of your character name and change all 4....once you have changed all 4 names to your new character name, it will change correctly and the name will stay changed to your new name....hope that makes sense.

[ρerειrα]

Doesn't work. Tried this guide and tried changing with the latest CE cheat table. It changes in-game but on the savefile it stays the save, reverting everytime I load. What could be the issue? Could it be that I started playing on English then changed to Brazilian Portuguese? I want to change the name because I think that the protag's default name is a bad fit considering the NPCs'/Party members' names.

[VP]

Alrighty. Good luck in NG+! 😎