The debut of The Last of Us on PC is an opportunity for modders to “energize” the success of Naughty Dog. For example, changing Joel’s face to that of the well-known actor from the HBO series with a paid mod.
Players can now replace Joel’s face in the PC edition of The Last of Us: Part One featuring the likeness of Pedro Pascal from the HBO television adaptation of the game.
The mod that makes this possible is the result of a collaboration between the Alpha Studios team and youtuber Speclizer (the same one who showed off an intriguing God of War modification a year ago). The former prepared high-quality “renders” of Pedro Pascal’s face, which modders then overlaid onto Joel’s in-game model. You can see the effect in the video, which we posted below.
It all works surprisingly well, although Pascal speaking Joel’s lines in Troy Baker’s voice gives off a rather odd vibe. It is also possible to notice some grimaces or small failures (for example, with facial hair), which indicate that one is facing a change.
Unfortunately, the mod is not available for everyone. Speclizer shared it in a message to its Patreon subscribers and has so far not mentioned that it intends to make it available for free.
Other modders are not idle either, it’s just that at the moment such “happy creations” are not on their minds. Most of the mods that have arrived on Nexus Mods are technical and visual fixes that players need in relation to, shall we say, the very unsatisfactory state of the PC port of the first The Last of Us.
Passionate about video games (and others) for years, he completed an MBA in linguistics, defending a thesis on games. He started his adventure with GlobeLiveMedia in 2015, writing in the editorial department, then also covering movies and oh, horror! – technology (also a contributor to the Games Encyclopedia). He started with platform games, which he still loves (including metroidvania), but he also likes card games (including “analog” games), fighting games, soul games and virtually any other kind of game. Don’t ask about the graphics: after a few hours of exposure, you can revel in pixelated game characters reminiscent of the days of the Game Boy era (if not older).
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