When you're really used to seeing someone with facial hair, it can be a bit of a trip to see them without it. You might be the type to have a beard because without its help you look like a ten-year-old, or maybe like me, it's really weird to see your dad's face without at least a little bit of stubble. For Ellie, it's inevitably the same when it comes to her father figure Joel, who isn't ever seen without his perfectly grizzled beard. However, one fan edit has revealed what Joel looks like without it.
The Last of Us has one of the best opening sequences in games ever...
Spotted by GameRant, a fan edit for The Last of Us 2 allows us to have a good look at the face beneath the beard and, um, I sort of prefer the beard if I'm being honest. Joel looks like a completely different person without facial hair and it makes me very uncomfortable. Just look at him, who is this strange man?
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It's no surprise, honestly, that he looks better with a beard. Developers at Naughty Dog would have gone through thousands of ideas for what Joel would look like before settling on the character design we know and love. They would have thought of every different way he could look before giving us a man we could connect with and felt like a leading figure in a world torn apart by the apocalypse. So the fact he looks odd without the beard makes perfect sense.
When posted to Reddit, some users made the comparison that he suddenly looked a lot less like Joel and a lot more like Harrison Ford which I can definitely see. If it wasn't for HBO's The Last of Us series already casting The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal as a younger Joel, I'm sure there would have been fans calling for Harrison Ford to play the older Joel in the later setting of The Last of Us Part 2.
However, the rest of Reddit is hugely against this beardless version of the character and you may agree. Joel, mate, the beard suits you but I'm sure you knew that already you handsome devil.
Featured Image Credit: Naughty DogTopics: News, The Last of Us Part 2, Naughty Dog