How a modder discovered Nintendo’s most advanced Mii characters hidden in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

How a modder discovered Nintendo’s most advanced Mii characters hidden in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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After two generations at the center of Nintendo’s consoles, Miis apparently took a back seat for Switch. You can still create a Nintendo-themed avatar on the portable hybrid system, but Nintendo games support them much less often, with symbolic appearances in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate your most notable appearances. This led many to believe that the Mii era was over, but a new discovery seems to show that Miis are secretly at the heart of one of Nintendo’s most beloved Switch games – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

. You wouldn’t necessarily know this at first.

On January 4, modder Mii HEYimHeroic posted a discovery that seemed to confirm that Mii-like parameters were used to create NPCs in Breath of the Wild, using modding to inject personalized details of the Miis in the game and see their familiar cartoon faces represented as Hylians in Breath of the Wild’s Art style. These results seem to prove that Breath of the Wild NPCs are a form of advanced Mii – a point that the game’s code helps to support by referring to them as ‘UMiis’.

HEYimHeroic has been researching Miis for about a year, starting to deepen Wii Facts Plus Twitter Account and a library of all Miis created by Nintendo along the way. Speaking to me on Twitter, they explained that the Breath of the Wild modding community theorized that the Miis could be related to Breath of the Wild NPCs right after the game was released, even though they found the term UMii related to NPCs when searching the files about the game. However, that search seemed to have died in the years that followed: “The modders I spoke with assumed it was just a name, after a while, and that’s where the similarities ended,” explains HEYimHeroic. “No one had ever really tried to port Miis to the game … and I did it out of curiosity!”

The discovery was to realize that UMiis share ID values ​​for parts of their construction with traditional Miis: “Each type of mouth, eyes, hair, etc., all have a certain ID value associated with Miis. The important thing here is that UMiis also shares exactly the same ID values, so this part is probably the easiest – just copy and paste the Mii ID value into UMii! HEYimHeroic then discovered that the Mii color values ​​are taken from altered versions of the Wii U of the avatars, instead of the original Mii Studio and (with the help of an anonymous friend) figured out how to convert and assign them appropriately. The size of the Mii is one of the most confusing elements, with the existing values ​​not always corresponding to how they ended up in Breath of the Wild. “More testing is needed,” explains the modder, “but we know enough about them to carry Miis most of the time!”

HEYimHeroic thinks that Nintendo used, “a manual creation tool, like the Mii Maker. Or, maybe … UMii Maker? “

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The result was that, on December 30, HEYimHeroic managed to inject its own Mii design into the game and – with the help of a Breath of the Wild modding server – managed to create a UMii version of an existing Mii. “Looking back, now that I know more about the format,” they explain, “I definitely could have improved more, but at the time, it was more than enough to convince people that Miis and UMiis are not that different, after all . “

What HEYimHeroic found was that – in addition to key characters like Link and Zelda – Nintendo apparently used the UMii system to create all of the game’s NPCs. While non-human races, such as Gorons, use a very limited set of variables, human-like races, Hylians and Sheikah, use many of the same types of backend values ​​as Miis in their creation. Each NPC seems to be tailor-made, rather than generated, which HEYimHeroic thinks means that Nintendo used, “a manual creation tool, like the Mii Maker. Or maybe … UMii Maker? “

If there is a formal UMii Maker, its differences from the classic Mii Maker are as interesting as its similarities. For example, the option to add moles to Miis is not compatible with UMiis, and not all Mii hairstyles are replicated (although the game automatically converts an unsupported hairstyle to a similar one). “Eyeglass size, position and mustache position have also been removed,” adds HEYimHeroic. “These values ​​are no longer set manually, but the game automatically determines them based on the rest of the face. For example, if you move your mouth down on your face, your mustache will automatically move down on your face as well. “

Despite these changes, there seems to be a lot more nuance in how a UMii can be created compared to a Mii. “This is easily the most complex use of the Miis so far,” explains HEYimHeroic when I ask if this is the most advanced version of the Mii they have discovered. “In fact, it is so complex that it is still difficult to call them ‘Miis’. Depending on how strict your definition of a ‘Mii’ is, you can say that they are not even Miis! Previously, I thought the most interesting use of Miis was in Super Mario 3D Land, of all the games, where some levels you get are based on your Mii’s favorite color. But it takes the cake! “

This is easily the most complex use of the Miis so far. In fact, it is so complex that it is still difficult to call them ‘Miis’.

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At the time of writing, many of the new features for creating NPCs remain unknown, but HEYimHeroic is on a mission to document them. “For example”, explains the modder, “there are about 4 more values ​​that exist only to control NPC students. [And] there are only 12 favorite colors with Miis support, but I saw UMiis rise to 14, possibly more! […] There are a lot more color options than the game currently allows, so I would really like to delve into them. Also discovering some of the unknown values ​​(like the values ​​of the 4 students) would really allow you to edit the subtle details, which would really increase the magic of UMiis. “

There is a long way to go, but there seems to be no doubt that UMiis are really a step beyond the Miis we know. Which begs the question – is it possible that we can see UMiis being used in other Nintendo games, or even be able to create them ourselves in a context without modding? HEYimHeroic has bad news on that front:

“Probably not. Well, we can see the return of UMiis following Breath of the Wild … but when it comes to completely different games? No. There is a way too [much] BotW specific things here, it’s hard to imagine that UMiis was made for a ‘general purpose’ type of business. In fact, we believe that the name ‘UMii’ derives from [Breath of the Wild’s] internal name found in the files: UKing. Therefore, the name ‘UMiis’ can literally mean ‘Breath of the Wild Miis’, but there is no way to know for sure about it! “

If so, what about Miis in general? What does the world’s most notable Mii modder see as the future of Nintendo’s increasingly invisible pets?

“Before I discovered all this, I would not have given you a very optimistic answer. But that was because I didn’t even know that Nintendo was willing to transform Miis like that! I have a good feeling that the Miis will at least appear on the next platform, but I can say that Nintendo is running out of reasons for them to stay, which is very unfortunate. However, as long as they are willing to do things like UMiis that have a lot of Mii DNA in their files, I may be able to find solutions eventually and put the Miis in games that they shouldn’t even have. At least then, we still have Miis in some way. “

Even if we it is looking at the final piece of Mii’s evolution, it looks like a fitting tribute. Miis represent much of Nintendo’s recent past, becoming the friendly face of Nintendo games for more than a decade and becoming icons in the process. They are as much a part of the company’s visible history as Mario or Link himself. It seems fair, then, that they form an integral (albeit almost invisible) part of Nintendo’s perhaps greatest game at the same time.

Joe Skrebels is the Executive News Editor at IGN. Follow him on Twitter. Do you have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Send an email to [email protected].

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