Red Dead Redemption 2 players have immense freedom with their character's appearance, as they can change protagonist Arthur Morgan's hair and facial hair as they see fit, but the same isn't true of other characters in the game. Characters like Uncle are never seen without their facial hair, at least under normal circumstances.
However, when a game glitches, anything is fair game. In this particular Red Dead Redemption 2 glitch, a player was startled to discover that Uncle had abruptly lost his beard.
As shared by Realistic-Layer2893 on Reddit, an image of the player's screen shows Uncle, completely beardless. Interestingly, it appears that the area of his face where his beard would normally be is a bit darker than the rest of his skin, as though the man still has a shadow of a beard even when the rest of it is missing. This is likely a texture that's part of his face, even if it normally wouldn't be seen while hidden under the beard mesh. Uncle clearly shows his age even without the beard, with the skin around his jaw appearing a bit jowly.
It's not entirely clear what happened to cause this particular glitch, and just about anything is possible. Wavy lines on the screen near Uncle may be a portion of his beard with the mesh stretched out until it's unrecognizable, but it's difficult to tell. Sometimes graphical limitations and overheating can cause game graphics to malfunction like this, especially if consoles like the PS4 haven't been cleaned of dust and are having trouble venting heat. Setting Red Dead Redemption 2's graphics as low as possible can also lead to some bizarre visual problems, but it doesn't seem to be the case here.
Of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 itself is no stranger to glitches, so it's possible something went wrong within the programming to cause this particular visual bug. Players have come across bugs that make NPCs look like zombies for no apparent reason, and at least one player experienced a psychedelic-like experience in Red Dead Redemption 2 when the visuals became highly saturated and awash in neon colors. There's a lot that can go awry in an open-world game of this size and scope. While Red Dead Redemption 2 usually gains more attention for its physics-based glitches that send players flying through the air, it's not unheard of for strange visual issues to crop up.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.