Best Free Rigged 3D Character Models for Games (2026)
Last updated: September 2026.
The best free rigged 3D characters for games come from four sources that ship them already animated: KayKit's character packs (CC0, five rigged adventurers with weapons in the free tier), Quaternius's Ultimate Animated Character Pack (50-plus animated characters), Polygonal Mind's 100 Avatars (167 rigged CC0 characters across two rounds), and Kenney's animated character packs (CC0, in Kenney's blocky style). Mixamo adds a few dozen rigged humanoids free with an Adobe account, and Poly Pizza and Sketchfab's CC0 filter cover thousands more if you're willing to sort. Everything here is free for commercial use. Where a licence has a condition, I've said so.
A rigged character is the difference between a model and a game. A skeleton with skin weights means it can walk, and a model that arrives with animations means it walks today. Here's every source worth bookmarking, what each pack actually contains, and what to do when the character you want has no bones.
Quick picks
- Complete, consistent, ready to drop in: KayKit Character Pack: Adventurers (CC0). Five rigged, textured, animated characters plus 25 weapons and accessories, free; three more for $7.95.
- The biggest single animated set: Quaternius Ultimate Animated Character Pack. 50-plus animated characters, FBX, OBJ and Blend, free.
- Realistic-proportion humanoids that work with Mixamo clips: 100 Avatars R1 and R2 (CC0), 167 rigged characters in FBX and glTF.
- Blocky and cheerful, matches every other Kenney pack: Kenney's Animated Characters (CC0).
- A rigged base to test your pipeline: Mixamo's character roster, free with an Adobe account.
- Thousands to sort through: Poly Pizza and Sketchfab, filtered to CC0.
- A character with no rig: Cinevva's Auto Rigger, free in the browser, then the Animation Library for 260 CC0 clips.
- Skip the asset hunt: describe the game in the game creator and the characters arrive rigged and animated.
Quick reference
| Source | What you get | Rigged | Animations | Formats | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KayKit Adventurers | 5 characters, 25+ accessories | Yes | Basic set, more in the free Animations pack | FBX, glTF | CC0 |
| Quaternius Ultimate Animated | 50+ characters | Yes | Included | FBX, OBJ, Blend | Quaternius licence, no attribution |
| 100 Avatars R1 + R2 | 73 + 94 humanoids | Yes | Mixamo-compatible | FBX, glTF | CC0 |
| Kenney Animated Characters | Protagonists, Retro, Survivors packs | Yes | Included | FBX, glTF, more | CC0 |
| Mixamo | A few dozen humanoids | Yes | Thousands, applied on site | FBX | Free, commercial, no redistribution |
| Poly Pizza | 10,600+ low-poly models | Some | Some | glTF, others | CC0 and CC BY, per model |
| Sketchfab (CC0 filter) | Thousands | Some | Some | glTF, FBX, others | Per model |
KayKit
Kay Lousberg's KayKit packs are the best-organised free characters in game development. The Character Pack: Adventurers gives you five fully textured, rigged and animated fantasy characters with basic movement animations and more than 25 weapons and accessories, in FBX and glTF for Unity, Godot, Unreal and Roblox. The EXTRA tier adds three more characters for $7.95 and the SOURCE tier adds the Blender files for $11.95, but the free tier is a complete, shippable set.
The Character Animations pack is a separate free download of additional clips that fit every KayKit character, and the Skeletons and other character packs share the same rig, so animations carry across. Everything KayKit publishes is CC0: personal and commercial use, no attribution. The models share a small gradient atlas texture (1024 pixels, and KayKit notes it can be shrunk to 128 without visible loss), which keeps a whole party of characters under a megabyte.
Quaternius
Quaternius has released hundreds of low-poly packs over a decade, and the Ultimate Animated Character Pack is the one to start with: more than 50 rigged characters with animations, in FBX, OBJ and Blend. The Animated Men, Women, Robot, Zombie, Knight and Alien packs each add a themed set on the same rig, and the Universal Base Characters and Modular Character Outfits packs let you build your own.
One licence note. Quaternius packs were CC0 for years and the pack pages still say so, but the site now publishes a Quaternius Asset Licence (QAL v1.0) that applies going forward: free for personal, educational and commercial projects including games, no attribution required, no fees or royalties, and you may not resell or redistribute the assets themselves as a standalone pack, stock file or template. For a game, nothing changes. For an asset tool or a bundle, read it. Patreon supporters get bonus source kits, but the packs above are free.
100 Avatars
Polygonal Mind's 100 Avatars project released two rounds of rigged low-poly humanoids under CC0, 73 in round one and 94 in round two, in FBX and glTF, on Sketchfab and Poly Pizza. They're humanoid-proportioned rather than chibi, which means Mixamo clips and our Animation Library retarget onto them cleanly, and the variety (professions, sports, fantasy) covers a crowd or a multiplayer roster without repeats. Being CC0, they're also the safest base for a character customiser, since you can redistribute modified versions.
Kenney
Kenney's character packs come in the same flat, blocky style as the rest of Kenney's CC0 catalogue, which is the point: if your props and environment are Kenney, these match. Animated Characters Protagonists, Animated Characters Retro and Animated Characters Survivors each ship rigged and animated characters in several formats, and Blocky Characters and Mini Characters add unanimated variants you can rig yourself. All CC0.
Mixamo
Mixamo is an animation library first, but it also hosts a few dozen rigged, textured humanoid characters that you can download with any of its clips applied, free with an Adobe account. The licence allows commercial use in games with no attribution and forbids redistributing the raw files, so the characters are fine in a shipped game and not fine in an asset pack. Adobe hasn't added to Mixamo in years, so what's there is what there is. It's the fastest way to get a rigged test character into a pipeline.
Poly Pizza and Sketchfab
Poly Pizza hosts more than 10,600 free low-poly models, including the archived Google Poly collection and years of community uploads, with a licence filter for CC0 and CC BY. Rigged characters are a minority and you'll sort, but the 100 Avatars bundles live there, and the site's own bundles collect character sets by creator.
Sketchfab still allows free downloads of models their creators marked downloadable, and its CC0 filter is the way to search it. Rigged and animated models show up in the filters too. Check each model's licence line before downloading, because CC BY and CC BY-NC are common and the second is off-limits for a game you sell.
Our free 3D character models page collects the packs above with their licences, and the Best Free 3D Model Sites guide covers the sources for everything that isn't a character.
When the character you want has no rig
Most of the free 3D models in the world are static. A downloaded character, a Sketchfab find, a model out of a generator: none of them arrive with a skeleton. Rigging by hand in Blender is a day's work for a beginner.
Cinevva's Auto Rigger does it in the browser for free: upload a GLB, FBX or OBJ, pick humanoid or quadruped, and get back a rigged GLB with skin weights. From there the Animation Library previews 260 CC0 clips on your character, and Prompt Animations generates a motion from a sentence when the library doesn't have it. Our Free Character Animations and Auto-Rigging guide compares every auto-rigger, including Mixamo's and the ones inside Meshy and Tripo.
For the best result, upload a clean single mesh in a T-pose or A-pose with the arms away from the body. Characters with crossed arms, merged limbs or heavy skirts need a cleanup pass afterwards.
How to judge a rigged character in 30 seconds
- Play the walk. Feet should plant. Sliding or floating means the rig or the clip is off.
- Bend the elbows and knees. Pinching or candy-wrapper twisting at the joints means poor skin weights, which is fixable in Blender but tedious.
- Count the bones. Around 20 to 65 for a game humanoid. More than 100 means facial or finger bones you may not need and a heavier file.
- Check the bone names. Mixamo-style or Unreal-style naming retargets everywhere. A rig with
Bone.001names retargets nowhere. - Look at the file size. A rigged low-poly character should be under 2 MB as a GLB. Larger means an oversized texture or an unoptimised mesh; the GLB Optimizer fixes both.
Licences in 30 seconds
- KayKit, 100 Avatars, Kenney: CC0. Anything, no credit, redistribute freely.
- Quaternius: free commercial use, no attribution, don't redistribute the assets as assets.
- Mixamo: commercial use in games, no attribution, no redistribution of the files.
- Poly Pizza, Sketchfab: per model. Filter for CC0; CC BY needs a credit line; CC BY-NC can't ship in a paid game.
Our Game Asset Licenses Explained guide covers the differences in depth.
Common Questions
Where can I get free rigged 3D characters for games?
KayKit, Quaternius, 100 Avatars and Kenney all ship rigged and animated characters free for commercial use. Mixamo adds rigged humanoids free with an Adobe account. Poly Pizza and Sketchfab have thousands more behind a CC0 filter.
Are free rigged characters OK for a commercial game?
Yes, from every source above. KayKit, 100 Avatars and Kenney are CC0. Quaternius and Mixamo permit commercial use in games without attribution but not redistributing the files themselves. Check per-model licences on Poly Pizza and Sketchfab.
Do free rigged characters come with animations?
KayKit, Quaternius and Kenney include animations. 100 Avatars are rigged for Mixamo-style clips. For any rigged humanoid, Cinevva's Animation Library retargets 260 CC0 clips in the browser, and Mixamo applies its library on download.
What if the character I want isn't rigged?
Auto-rig it. Cinevva's Auto Rigger handles humanoids and quadrupeds in the browser for free, Mixamo's rigger handles humanoids, and Meshy and Tripo rig models generated on their platforms.
What format should I download?
glTF or GLB for browser games and modern engines, since the mesh, textures, skeleton and animations travel in one file. FBX for Unity and Unreal pipelines and for anything heading into Blender for edits. The FBX to GLB converter handles the crossover.
Related
- Free Character Animations and Auto-Rigging - the clips and riggers in depth
- Best Free 3D Model Sites for Games - everything that isn't a character
- Best AI Animation Generators for 3D Characters - text to motion and video mocap
- Game Asset Licenses Explained - CC0, CC BY and the rest
- Cinevva Auto Rigger - rig a static character in the browser
- Cinevva Animation Library - 260 CC0 clips on your own model
- Free 3D character models and low-poly packs - browse the free library