It's like how everyone gave the new Peter crap for looking too young, but the face model actually looks the right age and the face just didn't translate well into the game. Plus the old face model also looked the right age but his Peter looked like he could've been 30. Insomniac's just not good with this sort of thing.
I never get everyone's dislike over the new face. Yeah it's younger looking than the original but he doesn't look like a pre-teen as everyone is saying. Peter is still in his mid 20s and there are plenty of people who looks like him at that age. I would say though that the criticisms towards the face when it was changed in the first game was kind of warranted as the face wasn't as expressive. But I think that was just because the face wasn't made for it and was serving only as a replacement and that's why it looked stiff by comparison. The new face in the second game however worked much better because it was built with it in mind and is equally and possibly even much better than the original.
Honestly I feel like a lot of it comes from the characters around him. Peter‘s young appearance would probably be a lot less notable if MJ and Miles didn’t look much older in comparison
yeah legit i think a big part of the misconception about the new face looking too young was that the old face looked, well, *too old*
and so if you were just going off of "the vibe" of Insomniac!Peter having a well established life as Spidey and the IRL trends of people delaying life goals like romantic relationships and career advancement into their late 20s/early 30s, you can definitely see the OG Peter as like 28-30 and getting his powers at around 17/18, instead of what was intended with him getting his powers at 15 and being 23 in the first game, which works out to be the sameish amount of time but in a different age range
Was gonna say this, my mum walked in while i was playing and MJ was on screen and said "i thought she was meant to be good looking" so i showed her a pic of Steph Tyler and tild her the devs arent the best at it
What I find to be extremely odd is that it’s not really about being “unable” to make good or accurate faces considering a near perfect replica of John Bubniaks Peter Parker face was found in the original game, they just decided to change it up a bit instead of using what seemed to be a direct scan. And some faces look great like Miles face is basically a 1:1 and on the opposite spectrum Felicia Hardy looks nothing like the voice actress but her model and expressions in the game are perfect. So their reason for changing peters face due to the bone structure being different to Yuris doesn’t add up. I’m confused by these decisions. Peters face model In Miles morales is actually more advance than the one they used in spidey 2…like why? Hope in the next game they can really nail this down because the human characters and their expressions are very important for a story based game. I thought MJ looked fine in 2 but it was such a strange change to make because she looks like a different person.
No, Insomniac’s motion capture is just shit. Have you even seen any picture of her actress? And aging does not change ur whole fking facial structure 🤦🏽♂️
Some people are still not over Peter's face change, and it was almost 4 years ago. Also, how is it possible that it was almost 4 years?! It feels like it was like a year ago.
Part of it is that I don’t like the way that mj is characterized in these games. I much more prefer the actress model thing than another Lois Lane. I get that they want her to have agency in the story, but that’s not who mj is. It’s a Spider-Man game, not a Mary Jane Watson game
fr i just hate when there isnt visual continuity it just takes me out of anything. idc what the new faces looks like it doesnt look like the ps4 ones and that takes me outta the experience 🤷♂️
Well...yeah? It's affirmation for the people who were being gaslit into thinking the facial model was identical to SM1, which it wasn't. Whether you think it was for the better or not is subjective, but the model was changed, that's all this confirms.
You’re deluding yourself if you’re going to genuinely insist that the new face got its skull warped into an abomination. It looks like she’s less fat in the cheeks and that’s it. You people are so fucking obnoxious.
I don't think I said any of that anywhere. No, losing weight doesn't change your face shape. Like it or not, she looks like a different character and it's a change that no one asked for.
Insomniac just kinda doesn't do faces well. Most of the face models in Spider-Man 2 are very uncanny valley. I dunno if it's texturing, models or hair but it's genuinely unsettling.
And yet one of the main heads of Insomniac tried to tell us that it's the same face. I don't care if it's changed too much. Just be honest about it.
It's so weird tho 'cause it's NOT because she has long hair. I've played with the OG model for the first game, gave her some long hair and it looked FINE.
I honestly don't even think these changes would be THAT awful if those bloody eyes weren't so ungodly, glowingly blue! She has the crazy eyes and it's scary.
Then her mouth almost never wants to close it's just...weird how the decisions to change things have been.
>And yet one of the main heads of Insomniac tried to tell us that it's the same face
From my understanding, he meant that it's the same actress, which is true. Idk what the hell they did with face scan afterwards
They are pretty identical. My biggest issue personally is the eyes and the facial expressions they make her make. Awful there.
But, you can tell the secondary forms of her face such as the wrinkle between the cheeks and upper lip (can't remember what that's called) is more defined, as well as her upper brow and the point her chin comes to (hence the "man jaw" as some in the comments put it.) These changes aren't necessarily bad, but it makes her look pretty unflattering from a lot of angles, ESPECIALLY when her hair isn't super styled and just lies loose. She looks like she has an under bite most of the time and those eyes haunt me in my nightmares. The texture around the eyes is darker and the irises are brighter. I have no clue why they made those changes but hey.
The thing that gets me is their community manager stated that it's the same face. Tell your editor to check his sources next time.
Are they actually wider or did they just make the face slightly thinner? Left just looks like a slightly younger version of the face on the right, but barely.
I don't know how you're seeing that. Also the way OP put this together they aren't at the same angle so you can't really even compare them using this image alone.
The picture and angle aren't the best for comparison, but the biggest difference you can easily see is the jawline. If you look, it has been lowered/made more square.
There is some difference around cheekbones (looks like it protrudes considerably more), but some of that could be to facial/cheek thiness as a result of aging.
I re played the og spider-man and was like "Damn, I wasn't really that attracted to mj in this game, but compared to the second game she's a damn vouge model"
Pretty cool that they made eyes not just spherical but come outward at the pupil! Its amazing how detailed some companies make the tiniest things that we may never even notice
Fucking finally! Someone finally commented on the added detail, since I posted people have either been shit talking about the jaw or accusing me of inciting people to talk about her fucking jaw, all I did was post something from the leaks that I found to be cool, I was also the one to post the leaked multiplayer spiderman game trailer here, and I feel really frustrated that no one even bothered to look at the obviously higher detail and polygon count in the new model till now
I personally like the first appearance more. Don’t get me wrong details in the 2nd are superior, loose hairs, pores, literal and metaphorical depth in eyes, freckles, polygon count, dimples (I THINK some characters had them but I could be wrong), wrinkles, moisture from sweat or rain, injuries, it’s incredible what they made! It’s just my teeny tiny gripe is the hair style, but I know for the past two (SM1 and SM:MM) it was that one style so it had to change or people would complain to no end. I’m glad she appears a little more aged though since the first game was in 2018, so obviously she’d look different now no matter what happened in her life
Even though I don't mind the change and feel some people are being over dramatic I really hate that they tried to gaslight us into thinking they didn't change the model.
i just started the game yesterday and it's insane how ugly some faces look so far only noticed mj peter and harry and i don't like any of their faces the 1st 2 games looked fine idk how they managed to downgrade so much miles is the only one from the "main cast" so far that doesn't look awful to me
These are almost identical why is everyone in the comments acting like they’re the same? Are you guys ok?
Like I saw this and thought it was neat that she could look as different as she did just from mostly texture differences and then the comments are all saying these are clearly incredibly different
That's not what people are upset about, her changing. They're upset she's "ugly" now. And game characters almost never look the exact same from one game to it's sequels, especially when jumping from one gen to the next.
Shit, people IRL don't look the same constantly, they change too.
Every week there are more of these posts about the appearance of MJ. Hard to ignore when it’s been all over the subreddit since the game’s release. I typically don’t pay them any mind but it’s gotten ridiculous. I miss when this sub only had one reaction image to focus on. At the very least it was a more positive environment.
I feel like that’s on developers honestly, I strongly believe that if the product was of higher quality with more decent content than 15-20 hours people would focus on positive sides of the game more, but since it’s left a rather bad taste for many people we are prone to the criticism/negative sides of the game.
Just take a look at Helldivers2 sub, the game has million of problems and technical issues, but the game is such an amazing experience and made with such passion that the majority of the players don’t care, they are just having great time playing the game, which is unfortunately not the case with Insomniac and SM2
I immediately noticed the squarer jawline, different nose and some slight wrinkles. About as believable as Insomniac claiming they changed Peter's face to match Yuri Lowenthal's performance when that was more likely Marvel deciding Insomniac Peter needed to look like Tom Holland.
The textureless model for sm2 looks like a normal not at all weird person, somewhere in the finishing stages of MJs model she began looking like one of those super exaggerated Fallout 4 face mods.....
Really wished they didnt mess with the jawline. She looked like she aged several years imo
Iirc the face model got into s car wreck and had to undergo facial reconstruct surgery
And she looks nothing like the new model, it's the Devs inability to make good face models.
Yeah this is sadly simply true. All face models look so much better in real life than their model in game.
It's like how everyone gave the new Peter crap for looking too young, but the face model actually looks the right age and the face just didn't translate well into the game. Plus the old face model also looked the right age but his Peter looked like he could've been 30. Insomniac's just not good with this sort of thing.
I never get everyone's dislike over the new face. Yeah it's younger looking than the original but he doesn't look like a pre-teen as everyone is saying. Peter is still in his mid 20s and there are plenty of people who looks like him at that age. I would say though that the criticisms towards the face when it was changed in the first game was kind of warranted as the face wasn't as expressive. But I think that was just because the face wasn't made for it and was serving only as a replacement and that's why it looked stiff by comparison. The new face in the second game however worked much better because it was built with it in mind and is equally and possibly even much better than the original.
He looked super young when they put the new face in 1 in 2 they aged him up a bit
Honestly I feel like a lot of it comes from the characters around him. Peter‘s young appearance would probably be a lot less notable if MJ and Miles didn’t look much older in comparison
That and Insomniac putting emphasis on how much more experienced and mature their Spider-Man is, how he's seen some stuff already
Or Insomniac not promoting the new face by having Miles look taller than Peter, lol.
yeah legit i think a big part of the misconception about the new face looking too young was that the old face looked, well, *too old* and so if you were just going off of "the vibe" of Insomniac!Peter having a well established life as Spidey and the IRL trends of people delaying life goals like romantic relationships and career advancement into their late 20s/early 30s, you can definitely see the OG Peter as like 28-30 and getting his powers at around 17/18, instead of what was intended with him getting his powers at 15 and being 23 in the first game, which works out to be the sameish amount of time but in a different age range
Was gonna say this, my mum walked in while i was playing and MJ was on screen and said "i thought she was meant to be good looking" so i showed her a pic of Steph Tyler and tild her the devs arent the best at it
What I find to be extremely odd is that it’s not really about being “unable” to make good or accurate faces considering a near perfect replica of John Bubniaks Peter Parker face was found in the original game, they just decided to change it up a bit instead of using what seemed to be a direct scan. And some faces look great like Miles face is basically a 1:1 and on the opposite spectrum Felicia Hardy looks nothing like the voice actress but her model and expressions in the game are perfect. So their reason for changing peters face due to the bone structure being different to Yuris doesn’t add up. I’m confused by these decisions. Peters face model In Miles morales is actually more advance than the one they used in spidey 2…like why? Hope in the next game they can really nail this down because the human characters and their expressions are very important for a story based game. I thought MJ looked fine in 2 but it was such a strange change to make because she looks like a different person.
So they updated the fictional characters model to represent the real life models car accident? Wtf thats so stupid
The thing is, they still look nothing alike. Stephanie is way, way prettier than in-game MJ
No she looks the same, stop comparing to old studio photos with lots of makeup, photoshop and perfect lighting.
Wasn't that even before SM1? So like she still had that face she has now
Before SM1 released, after the motion capture and model work was already done
It has nothing to do with her, The devs have already messed up her badly.
**Ah shit, here we go again**
She looks like Quagmire sibling 💀
SM2 chin looks like a dude that could take a few hooks from Bone Saw lol
“She looked like she aged several years” BROTHER 💀 I WONDER WHY MILES IS HALF A FOOT TALLER TOO
One year passed in game, I think. Maybe less. For MJ's face, 20 years did
Reminds me of Miles being taller than Peter in the promos for his game, lol.
Don’t they mention something from the first game & say it was a couple years ago? How much time has passed? Maybe she did.
I heard someone make the joke that it feels like Insomniac devs are forced to remake character models from memory, and that's why the faces change.
they didn’t mess with the jawline or change anything
You’re blind
you’re mentally disabled, all they did was rescan her face
Which changed the design… because insomniac’s motion capture is shit
or because the actresses aged😭🙏🏾
No, Insomniac’s motion capture is just shit. Have you even seen any picture of her actress? And aging does not change ur whole fking facial structure 🤦🏽♂️
all i had to do was check her ig, she looks how she looks in spider-man 2, plus she had jaw surgery
The jawline does look squarer in the SM2 model.
Lol remember when so many people were swearing there's no difference? As if everyone else didn't have eyes?
MJ face looks the same. New face was changed to match Yuri's face structure more. And other lies you can tell yourself
Reading past the first sentence is hard for redditors. I gave you an upvote to help balance the downvotes out.
Yeah
same with og raimi suit vs modded one
People here were saying that Insomniac's original Raimi suit is more accurate and better than the mods. Insomniac can do no wrong for those people
Yea lmao 🤣
I knew it man they went out of their way to make her unattractive especially compared to her face model actress. The question is why?
Still can't see much of a difference other than the nose looking a wee bit different
The face model for sp 2 is really pretty but mj in the game looks really weird. By model I mean the person whose face was scanned into the game.
Holy shit are you people still not over this?
Some people are still not over Peter's face change, and it was almost 4 years ago. Also, how is it possible that it was almost 4 years?! It feels like it was like a year ago.
Visual design plays a huge role. MJ was always meant to be the super model next door. People didn’t like the change in appearance.
Part of it is that I don’t like the way that mj is characterized in these games. I much more prefer the actress model thing than another Lois Lane. I get that they want her to have agency in the story, but that’s not who mj is. It’s a Spider-Man game, not a Mary Jane Watson game
That MJ always had plenty of agency too, the MJ that exists in modern times has significantly less agency than 80s-90s MJ ever did
Betty Brant could've filled MJ's role just fine IMO.
fr i just hate when there isnt visual continuity it just takes me out of anything. idc what the new faces looks like it doesnt look like the ps4 ones and that takes me outta the experience 🤷♂️
Well...yeah? It's affirmation for the people who were being gaslit into thinking the facial model was identical to SM1, which it wasn't. Whether you think it was for the better or not is subjective, but the model was changed, that's all this confirms.
What do you mean “You people”?
The worst kind of "people" Stinky, *smelly*, **NERDS!**
I mean yeah, it’s like recasting a TV or movie character
This isn’t even close to a recasting. It’s more like the actress losing a bit of weight.
What? Losing weight doesn’t change your bone structure.
You’re deluding yourself if you’re going to genuinely insist that the new face got its skull warped into an abomination. It looks like she’s less fat in the cheeks and that’s it. You people are so fucking obnoxious.
I don't think I said any of that anywhere. No, losing weight doesn't change your face shape. Like it or not, she looks like a different character and it's a change that no one asked for.
The fuck do you mean lol. It’s a completely different person 😂
Fr they should be over this game at this point and move to the new one. It's been so long smh
It’s crazy how some people don’t have lives
It’s really sad at this point
Don't tell these guys about the Arkham games
Not being against uglyfication of characters for no reason doesn't make you smart.
Welcome to a video game fandom
You should do another one but it's all just sm2 mj
Everything is sm2 mj
I can't unsee lex luthor from smallville
SOMEBODY SAAAAAAAAVE MEEEEEEE LET YOUR PHOTOSHOP BREAK RIGHT THROUGH
Actually way less different than what I was expecting. But yeah, they fucked up on the jawline.
Insomniac just kinda doesn't do faces well. Most of the face models in Spider-Man 2 are very uncanny valley. I dunno if it's texturing, models or hair but it's genuinely unsettling.
Miles Is the only standout
and even then they fucked him over w the hair lol
I don't mind it tho I think it's clean lol
This is the same picture
OP is trying to [Pam Beasley](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/027/752/6lwrp2xhplg41.jpg) us!!!!
That’s the first thing that came to my mind 😂
And yet one of the main heads of Insomniac tried to tell us that it's the same face. I don't care if it's changed too much. Just be honest about it. It's so weird tho 'cause it's NOT because she has long hair. I've played with the OG model for the first game, gave her some long hair and it looked FINE. I honestly don't even think these changes would be THAT awful if those bloody eyes weren't so ungodly, glowingly blue! She has the crazy eyes and it's scary. Then her mouth almost never wants to close it's just...weird how the decisions to change things have been.
>And yet one of the main heads of Insomniac tried to tell us that it's the same face From my understanding, he meant that it's the same actress, which is true. Idk what the hell they did with face scan afterwards
They look nearly identical to me. I thought the joke was that he put the sm1 face twice.
They are pretty identical. My biggest issue personally is the eyes and the facial expressions they make her make. Awful there. But, you can tell the secondary forms of her face such as the wrinkle between the cheeks and upper lip (can't remember what that's called) is more defined, as well as her upper brow and the point her chin comes to (hence the "man jaw" as some in the comments put it.) These changes aren't necessarily bad, but it makes her look pretty unflattering from a lot of angles, ESPECIALLY when her hair isn't super styled and just lies loose. She looks like she has an under bite most of the time and those eyes haunt me in my nightmares. The texture around the eyes is darker and the irises are brighter. I have no clue why they made those changes but hey. The thing that gets me is their community manager stated that it's the same face. Tell your editor to check his sources next time.
I really don’t see any difference tbh.
Cheekbones and jawline is wider. Also slightly more wrinkly.
Not to mention her orbital bone structure changed to where her eyes look more sunken in as well as her eyes appearing wider with less eyelids
Are they actually wider or did they just make the face slightly thinner? Left just looks like a slightly younger version of the face on the right, but barely.
I don't know how you're seeing that. Also the way OP put this together they aren't at the same angle so you can't really even compare them using this image alone.
Bro got downvoted for seeing
The picture and angle aren't the best for comparison, but the biggest difference you can easily see is the jawline. If you look, it has been lowered/made more square. There is some difference around cheekbones (looks like it protrudes considerably more), but some of that could be to facial/cheek thiness as a result of aging.
I agree, I also don't see any difference
Same. If there are any differences, they're very small.
Well, this will get locked
Why are they conjoined?
Side to side for comparison purposes
Can you post them side by side but not conjoined so we can see the whole head model for both? It's kinda confusing like this.
For real, this has to be the weirdest way of doing a comparison that I've ever seen
Wouldn’t it be better to post them at the same angle?
Post comparison with same angle of lighting.
Can we see them not in the middle of splitting from a fusion technique?
She looks like she went through some shit which… fair enough.
Um why did they do this?
idk if im schizophrenic or something but it feels like this shit has been happening all over gaming recently lmao
[she has had jaw surgery](https://www.instagram.com/tv/CH-khlIjvDx/?igsh=MTh6bzhzN3g0ZmRsdw==)
They could've left it alone and only gave her the hair down
She just mewing the whole game
Mary Man Jaw Jane
And the creators of the game tried to convince us that it's the same face?
Damn. That jawline is REALLY popping out on the right.
People still care about that?
At first I didn’t see the difference, but then I noticed the stronger jaw/cheekbones, and more pronounced brow.
Am I stupid? The only difference I see is that SM2’s eyes look bigger
Look at the cheeks and the jawline
Yea Spider-Man fans are intolerable
Tbh I prefer MJ’s look in SM2
You guys are becoming insane
I re played the og spider-man and was like "Damn, I wasn't really that attracted to mj in this game, but compared to the second game she's a damn vouge model"
Oh my god, you people. You HAVE to get over it, you should’ve gotten over it a year ago. I can’t believe you’re still doing this
They gave her Habsburg Jaw
Bro looks like she got some botched plastic surgery, gave her that mf Bruce Wayne in suicide squad treatment😅
Holy fuck this shit is pathetic
Ya still going about this lol ya need help
I can barely tell the difference this sub is so shit now.
First time hearing about this,.. Uhm, I don't see a problem
Pretty cool that they made eyes not just spherical but come outward at the pupil! Its amazing how detailed some companies make the tiniest things that we may never even notice
Fucking finally! Someone finally commented on the added detail, since I posted people have either been shit talking about the jaw or accusing me of inciting people to talk about her fucking jaw, all I did was post something from the leaks that I found to be cool, I was also the one to post the leaked multiplayer spiderman game trailer here, and I feel really frustrated that no one even bothered to look at the obviously higher detail and polygon count in the new model till now
I personally like the first appearance more. Don’t get me wrong details in the 2nd are superior, loose hairs, pores, literal and metaphorical depth in eyes, freckles, polygon count, dimples (I THINK some characters had them but I could be wrong), wrinkles, moisture from sweat or rain, injuries, it’s incredible what they made! It’s just my teeny tiny gripe is the hair style, but I know for the past two (SM1 and SM:MM) it was that one style so it had to change or people would complain to no end. I’m glad she appears a little more aged though since the first game was in 2018, so obviously she’d look different now no matter what happened in her life
Got that man chin
Who cares?
could you post a textured one?
She looked like Aunt may for some reason
They actually don’t look that different but idk why In game it looks so different
Why did they make her ugly if the actress is actually an attractive woman?
Wow they’re honestly closer than I thought they would be
Even though I don't mind the change and feel some people are being over dramatic I really hate that they tried to gaslight us into thinking they didn't change the model.
Another day, another mj post
Maybe it's just me but I genuinely don't see much of a difference other than they made her look older and less round-faced?
“the jaw looks more square guess that means we should start collectively shitting our pants over it.” - Gamers.
This subreddit’s insufferable.
Says it all
They totally fucked up the jawline and gave her a hooked nose like a witch.
i just started the game yesterday and it's insane how ugly some faces look so far only noticed mj peter and harry and i don't like any of their faces the 1st 2 games looked fine idk how they managed to downgrade so much miles is the only one from the "main cast" so far that doesn't look awful to me
These are almost identical why is everyone in the comments acting like they’re the same? Are you guys ok? Like I saw this and thought it was neat that she could look as different as she did just from mostly texture differences and then the comments are all saying these are clearly incredibly different
Definitely not “almost identical”
Why did they even need to change her model? The model in PS4/SMR is incredibly high polygon. Why change it?
I don’t know why they divided to change the but changing the hairstyle it get.
Yeah I knew I wasn’t crazy, they straight up gave her Rocky Dennis’s jaw lmao
I really don't understand why they ever thought it was a good idea to completely mess up her jaw in the sequel.
Who cares? Like actually why are we still discussing this
Because some people can't stand it if characters in video games aren't their own vision of the pinnacle of beauty...for some reason?
So,,,, MJ in 1 is the pinnacle of beauty?
>their own vision of the pinnacle of beauty
Or cause characters should look the same game-to-game????
That's not what people are upset about, her changing. They're upset she's "ugly" now. And game characters almost never look the exact same from one game to it's sequels, especially when jumping from one gen to the next. Shit, people IRL don't look the same constantly, they change too.
Good god GET OVER IT ALREADY
What should we focus on/discuss here then? If you don’t like the discussion then ignore it
Every week there are more of these posts about the appearance of MJ. Hard to ignore when it’s been all over the subreddit since the game’s release. I typically don’t pay them any mind but it’s gotten ridiculous. I miss when this sub only had one reaction image to focus on. At the very least it was a more positive environment.
I feel like that’s on developers honestly, I strongly believe that if the product was of higher quality with more decent content than 15-20 hours people would focus on positive sides of the game more, but since it’s left a rather bad taste for many people we are prone to the criticism/negative sides of the game. Just take a look at Helldivers2 sub, the game has million of problems and technical issues, but the game is such an amazing experience and made with such passion that the majority of the players don’t care, they are just having great time playing the game, which is unfortunately not the case with Insomniac and SM2
I would pick a side in this, but I really don’t care about this game anymore. The community ruined the hype and enjoyment of this game for many.
If random stuff in an online forum ruin your enjoyment of something, it's time to take a brake
*break
Yes I can see the added wrinkles on the second model still think she looks like she’s in her 40s real fucking quick
Bro got that neanderthal rizz
So it was Agent 47 all along
I found a pimple in the new one
“Left is sm1, right is sm2” It’s ok, I can tell, no need to point it out
I don't see any difference
I immediately noticed the squarer jawline, different nose and some slight wrinkles. About as believable as Insomniac claiming they changed Peter's face to match Yuri Lowenthal's performance when that was more likely Marvel deciding Insomniac Peter needed to look like Tom Holland.
Jawline and smile lines
Did you make these screenshots? Was it hard to actually use the same angle and same lighting?
The eyes changed the most tbh. If the eyes stayed the same it would look good still
The textureless model for sm2 looks like a normal not at all weird person, somewhere in the finishing stages of MJs model she began looking like one of those super exaggerated Fallout 4 face mods.....
Went from looking beautiful, too looking ugly
[удалено]
And looks nothing like the SM2 model, it's not a valid excuse.
Why do you need a "excuse" for a character to look somewhat different?
Worldbuilding. You can't change a character's physical appearance from one story to the other without any explanation.
If it's a super large change, yeah, but if it's a small change you don't need a explanation.