Nintendo modders have found a way to transfer Mii characters to and from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
In a topic on Twitter, user HEYimHeroic, curator of Wii Facts Plus, documented findings that showed how the game’s NPCs are built through an “advanced version” of Nintendo’s character creator.
Hello, Mii specialist here. It turns out that NPCs in TLoZ: BotW use an advanced version of the Mii format. This means that with modding, you can inject Miis into the game. 🙂 Thinking about opening commissions for Mii injectables, both screenshots / images of your Mii and mod downloads! pic.twitter.com/8NfVr4zyqAJanuary 4, 2021
HEYimHeroic says that “with modding, you can convert and import Miis” into the game as NPCs, displaying characters inspired by Barret from Final Fantasy VII, Gunner from Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Matt from Wii Sports, as well as a character based on his own Mii. It is not a perfect system, however – the modder explains that the NPCs in Breath of the Wild use “an evolution of the Miis”. These updated characters “have almost all the same parameters as the Wii U / 3DS Miis, with some minor differences here and there.”
These differences extend to some unsupported facial features, but the most obvious change is in hair styles and colors, some of which are not included in Breath of the Wild. If you try to upload an unsupported hairstyle, the game will ask for a different style, although try to ensure that it is similar to the original version.
The discovery means that it is also possible to convert the game’s NPCs into their own Miis, although character backporting is not as accurate as doing the opposite. HEYimHeroic explains that Hyrule’s Mii characters “are a bit advanced” for exact copies and that you are likely to lose a lot of information as the systems try to convert the characters. However, this does not mean that you will be able to download characters like Link and Zelda – many of Hyrule’s most important heroes are pre-made and specially built 3D models. Since they are not Miis, they are not subject to the same rules.
Currently, the ramifications of HEYimHeroic’s discovery don’t go much further than character creation, but it will be interesting to see how far Nintendo has adapted its approach when Breath of the Wild 2 comes. We haven’t seen or heard much about the next sequence since its initial reveal, but with a new year coming, we could learn a lot more soon.
While we wait to return to Hyrule, here are some of the best Nintendo Switch games to help pass the time.