How to Make a Custom Fighting Game Roster

Updated October 12, 2026 6 min read

Every fighting game fan has a version of the roster in their head that the developers never shipped. The cut veteran who should have come back, the guest character that would have broken the internet, the full cast of a crossover that only exists in forum threads. Fighter Roster is a browser tool for turning that list into something you can actually look at: a working character select screen filled with your picks.

This guide walks through the whole process once, from an empty account to a link you can post. Nothing here needs a download, and everything in it works on the free plan.

Step 1: Decide what the roster is for

It sounds like a formality, but the purpose changes almost every later choice. A dream sequel roster wants a believable size and a mix of returning and new fighters. A tier list or a "top 12 of all time" wants a small, deliberate cast. A crossover wants visual consistency more than anything, because art from six different games will clash if you are not careful.

Write the list down before you open the builder. Aim for a number that fits the plan you are on: the free plan holds 12 fighters in one pack, and premium holds up to 100 per pack across three packs. Twelve is less limiting than it sounds. The original Street Fighter II launched with eight playable fighters and the first Super Smash Bros. with twelve.

Step 2: Create your account and open the Dashboard

Sign up with an email address or a Google account. After you confirm your email you land on the Hub, and the Dashboard is where fighters live. Fighters are stored in a pack, which is simply a container: one pack on the free plan, three on premium.

If you want to see how a finished roster behaves before doing any work, use the "Add Sample Fighters" button on the empty Dashboard. It fills the pack with a small set of fighters built from public-domain artwork, so you can open a theme and click around immediately. You can delete them afterwards.

Step 3: Add your fighters

Each fighter is a small record. The fields are:

• Name, which is what appears on the select screen.
• Class, a free-text label such as Grappler, Zoner or Saber. Use it however suits your roster.
• Two special moves and a short biography, which the Custom theme can show on the fighter panel.
• Three stats, Power, Speed and Defense, each from 0 to 100.
• Two images: a Grid View image for the small tile and a Large Display image for the big render shown when the fighter is highlighted.

Both images are required, and each must be a JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP file under 2 MB. The image guide linked at the bottom of this page covers cropping and sizing in detail, but the short version is: crop the grid image tight on the face, and use a cut-out render with a transparent background for the large one if you have it.

Stats are easier to keep consistent if you set a rule first. One approach that works well is to give every fighter the same total, say 180 points, and split it three ways. That stops every favourite from quietly ending up at 95 across the board.

Step 4: Pick a character select screen

Open the Roster page and choose a theme. A theme is the visual template the pack is shown through. It does not contain characters of its own, so the same twelve fighters can be viewed through every theme without rebuilding anything.

Two themes are free permanently: Naruto Storm 4, and Custom, which is a builder with eight style presets, more than twenty layouts and its own settings for backgrounds, colours, card shapes and grid size. The ported game themes (Smash Bros. Ultimate, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Mortal Kombat 1 and Street Fighter 6) belong to the premium pool, and one of them is unlocked for everybody each month on a rotation.

Try more than one. A cast that looks cramped on a dense grid can look exactly right on a layout built around large portraits, and switching costs nothing.

Step 5: Test it like a real select screen

Click through the fighters as player one and player two. Look for the problems that only show up in motion: a portrait that is cropped at the forehead, a name long enough to overflow its plate, one fighter whose art is far brighter than its neighbours. Fix those in the Dashboard and reload the theme.

Check a phone as well. The game themes are designed in landscape and switch to a dedicated portrait layout on phones, and the Custom theme is responsive, so the roster stays usable either way.

Step 6: Share it

When the roster looks right, create a snapshot. A snapshot is a frozen copy of the roster with its own link. Anyone can open it without an account, and editing your pack later does not change what they see. Give it a name, add up to five tags, and decide whether to list it in the public marketplace where other people can find it and vote on it.

Snapshots last 90 days by default. The free plan holds two at a time and premium holds ten, and you can delete an old one to make room.

Common mistakes

• Mixing art styles without a plan. If the cast comes from different games, pick one treatment, such as all official renders or all fan art by one artist, and stick with it.
• Leaving stats at the default. A roster where everyone is 50/50/50 reads as unfinished.
• Uploading huge files. Anything over 2 MB is rejected, and a 1000 pixel tall render is already more than the select screen needs.
• Forgetting the grid image. A beautiful full-body render shrunk to a tile is unreadable. Crop a separate face shot.