The new 'Uncharted's photo mode hilariously lets you ruin all the game's best moments

Naughty Dog's games are too beautiful for your run-of-the-mill screenshots.

The team behind titles like Uncharted and The Last of Us heard the cry from fans for more ways to capture their games' beauty by incorporating a photo mode into their latest addition to the Uncharted series: The Lost Legacy.

The game isn't out yet, but critics and fans are already almost more interested in this single feature than the game itself, overjoyed by the improvements from Uncharted 4's photo mode. Namely, they're losing their minds over the ridiculous facial expressions you can shuffle through at any given moment -- literally.

These faces include: Pucker, Cross-eye, Oh no!, Model, Duck face, Grr, Smile, and Grin. And I will reemphasize: you can freeze frame and contort protagonist Chloe Frazer's face into these expressions at any point in time.

She could be viscously murdering a dude with her bare hands. Or she might even be in the midst of an intense gun battle. Or, what about one of the most heartwarming and emotional cutscenes in the entire game, you ask?

Read it and weep, folks:

As you can imagine, this has lead to some hysterical results.

Kotaku reviewer Kirk Hamilton captured a litany of hysterical GIFs and compilations of the winky face:

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Sadly, though, I didn't have the same reaction that these (mostly male) players had to the silly new additions to Uncharted's photo capture abilities. Don't get me wrong: I'm as down for making winky faces while owning dudes as the next girl.

But Lost Legacy is the first time an Uncharted game has ever featured female leads. And playing as two strong AF ladies of color in a series that's known for making players feel badass brought me unspeakable amounts of joy.

It's not a joy women in games get to experience often.

So the first time I actually discovered the photo mode was after Chloe pointed out that the statues we passed by in an Indian temple were, in fact, symbols of female power. I scrambled to capture this singular moment of #ladypower in games -- only to be met with a familiar sense of disappointment.

After obsessively spending about 25 minutes getting the two leads to stand in the perfect light, messing with the depth of field, and wrestling with the camera, I realized just how limited the expressions Chloe and I were given to work with really were.

It's a small oversight, from a studio deserving of ample praise for making enormous strides to include diverse perspectives and characters in games.

But I can't say I wasn't a little crestfallen to discover that, while the developers thought to include both a "Duck face" and a nearly identical "Model" face, there wasn't a single power pose for me to to strike. At best, I had "Grrr," an expression of nauseatingly adorable indignation.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Female-centric stories are a rare delicacy in blockbuster games. And seeing one told in a flagship series like Uncharted proved continuously moving.

But new titles like Horizon Zero Dawn include everything from a "victorious," "power," and "pride" pose. And I wish Lost Legacy's photo mode gave its female leads the same dignity it gave Nathan Drake, with the opportunity to be captured in epic shots by the fan community.

Instead, I'm now more than a little weary of what the game's male fanbase will churn out in similar photo contests for Lost Legacy (see: the top comment on this Reddit thread about the photo mode to get a sense of why).

I guess I'll just have to make do with the duck face -- and try my best not to roll my eyes at it, since Chloe's not allowed to make that expression either.