Breath of the Wild NPCs appear to be based on ‘advanced’ Mii characters

If you’ve ever stared at one of them The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild‘s random villagers thinking “Hey, that looks like a Mii”, it could be because the two could be related.

Overnight, Twitter user and self-proclaimed Mii expert HEYimHeroic wrote that certain non-player characters Breath of the wilderness are based on an advanced version of existing Mii designs used for player avatars on Nintendo consoles and in some games. According to HEYimHeroic, this means that next to Breath of the wildernessWith NPCs that look like more detailed Mii characters, it is also possible to modify existing player Miis directly in hacked versions of the game.

“Actually, [Breath of the Wild NPCs] use an evolution of Mii characters, calling the game’s files’ UMii’s’ (which I’ll call them from now on) ‘, wrote HEYimHeroic in a Reddit thread. “UMiis almost all have the same parameters as Wii U / 3DS Miis, with a few minor differences here and there, such as moles that are no longer supported.” While all the NPCs in the game are seemingly based on ‘UMiis’, only the Hylian (human) characters have physical characteristics that mimic traditional Mii’s.

For example with the help of the Zelda Mod Discord, HEYi’mHeroic was able to add it recently Smash Bros. Ultimate Mii for Barret Final Fantasy VII in Breath of the wilderness, as well as Matt, one of the first Mii opponents you encounter in the original Wii Sports. They were able to successfully inject their own Mii, Alice, into the game as well, although the original hairstyle is not supported in Breath of the wilderness‘UMii’ designs, the default to something else. In theory this means that modders can also ‘backport’ Breath of the wilderness NPCs turn into Miis, although the process is much more messy.

HEYimHeroic, which was not immediately available for comment, is responsible for both WiiFactsPlus Twitter account and Tumblr, which collect and share hyper-specific information about Mii characters, as well as the Mii Library Project, which aims to document every official Mii that has appeared in a game. Nintndo has been using the avatar format, which allows players to customize faces, body types and accessories since the Wii was released in 2006. Like HEYimHeroic docs, there are also dozens of pre-made Mii characters with names that have appeared in games as actual characters. .

There is still a lot of work to be done to analyze exactly how Breath of the wildernessHowever, ‘UMiis’ are similar to traditional Miis. “[N]not every value is known, there are still a lot of interactions we are not sure about, etc., ”wrote HEYi’mHeroic, adding that they will provide more complete documentation of the discovery and how people can inject their own Miis in Breath of the wilderness once it’s done.