Choosing a Character Select Screen: Every Theme Compared

Updated October 12, 2026 7 min read

A character select screen does more than list fighters. It sets the tone of the whole game before a round is played: the wall of tiny icons in Smash says "everyone is here", while the handful of large portraits in an early Street Fighter says "learn these eight". Picking a theme for your own roster is the same decision in reverse. You already have the cast, and you are choosing the frame that flatters it.

In Fighter Roster a theme is only the frame. Your fighters live in a pack, and any pack can be viewed through any theme you have access to. That makes comparison cheap: build the cast once, then flip through the options below.

Custom

Custom is the builder rather than a recreation of one game, and it is free on every plan. It starts from eight style presets (Default, Pro Tournament, Ninja Scroll, Kombat Select, Dragon Team, Arcade Classic, Smash Bros Ultimate and Minimalist) and offers more than twenty layouts. Classic, Side by Side, Versus, Showcase, Cinematic and Carousel each arrange the grid and the two player panels differently, and five further layouts are designed only for phones held upright.

On top of the layout you control the details: grid density from three to twelve columns, six card shapes including circles and hexagons, border and selection effects, the spacing between cards, the colours for player one and player two, and the background. There are twenty built-in backgrounds, or you can upload your own image.

Choose Custom when the roster is not tied to one franchise, when you want the screen to match your own channel or tournament branding, or when you need it to work in portrait on a phone without compromise. It is the only theme that is fully responsive by design.

Naruto Storm 4

The other permanently free theme is modelled on the character select of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4. It is a strong default for anime casts and for any roster where the large character art matters more than the grid, because the layout gives the highlighted fighter a lot of room.

Smash Bros. Ultimate

The Smash theme recreates the famous dense wall of fighter tiles. It is the right choice for big rosters. Where other screens start to feel crowded past thirty fighters, this one is built to hold far more, and a full grid is the whole point of the look.

It is less forgiving of small casts. Twelve fighters on a screen designed for dozens leaves visible empty space, so on the free plan it works best when the roster is a deliberate "starting twelve" in the spirit of the original game.

Dragon Ball FighterZ

FighterZ uses a tile grid in front of a swirling vortex, with bold kanji and team-oriented framing. The energy of the screen suits fast, stylised casts, and because FighterZ is a three-versus-three game the theme reads naturally as a team builder. Use it for tag-team concepts and for anime crossovers that want more colour than the Storm theme provides.

Mortal Kombat 1

The MK1 theme is based on the Khaos Reigns select screen: a wall of portrait cards, the dragon emblem cell and a stone stage for the selected fighters. It is the darkest and most dramatic of the set. Realistic or painterly art looks at home here in a way that bright cel-shaded art does not, so it suits horror casts, film characters and anything aiming for a serious tone.

Street Fighter 6

The SF6 theme rebuilds the graffiti alley, neon title and hexagonal tiles of the Street Fighter 6 character select. It has the most personality of the game themes, with ink-splash framing behind the selected fighters. It is tuned for a roster of roughly two to three dozen fighters and looks best with full-body or waist-up art, since the fighters stand on either side of the grid.

Which themes are free?

Custom and Naruto Storm 4 are free forever. The four ported game themes form the premium pool. Premium subscribers can build through all of them at any time, and each month one pool theme is unlocked for everyone, on a rotation that works through all four. A banner on the theme picker shows which one is free right now.

Two details are worth knowing. First, viewing never requires access: anyone can open a shared roster in any theme, including people without an account. Second, your fighters are never tied to a theme, so nothing is lost when a rotation month ends. The pack is still there and still opens in the free themes.

How to choose

1. Count the cast. Under fifteen fighters, favour layouts with large portraits such as Custom, Storm 4 or MK1. Over forty, favour Smash.
2. Look at the art. Bright cel-shaded art suits Smash, FighterZ and Storm. Realistic art suits MK1. Mixed sources are easiest to unify in Custom with a plain background.
3. Think about where it will be seen. For a phone-first audience, test the portrait layout before you share.
4. Match the argument you are making. A "what the sequel should have been" roster lands harder on the real game's own screen.

If you are still undecided, build in Custom first. It is free, it is the most flexible, and the pack you fill there opens unchanged in every other theme later.

A note on orientation

The game themes are landscape designs, because the screens they recreate are. On a desktop or a phone held sideways you get the full layout. On a phone held upright they switch to a portrait layout made for that theme rather than shrinking the wide version until it is unreadable.