Modders Discover "Mii-Like" NPC System in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Even now, years after its release, fans are still discovering new aspects about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The latest discovery is that many of the NPCs in the game are, in a way, just an evolved form of the famous Mii system.

Detailed on Twitter by Alice (@HEYimHeroic), they explain that the NPCs in the popular adventure game uses an advanced version of the Mii format. And that with a bit of modding, you can inject your own custom miis into the game.

So whats different?

The NPCs are not Miis, but something the game files refer to as UMiis. These variations have many of the same data values as normals Miis, but with a bit more. This means that they can accept many of the same values, such as facial options, positions, sizes, and hairstyles. The game even has a backup system in place where, if presented with an unsupported hairstyle, it automatically converts it into a supported format and changes it to the most similar hairstyle available.

If someone was to, like Alice has, inject the information from a Wii/3DS Mii into the game, it should present them cleanly as an NPC. Some text examples that Alice made (seen in the header image) include the official Barrett Mii (representing Final Fantasy 7) and Matt, the infamously skilled opponent of the Wii Sports games.

Alice continues to explain some common questions about the UMii system. They clarified that special characters like Zelda, Link, and so on, are not UMiis, but separately created 3D models. You can also, in theory, backport a UMii data value set into a traditional Mii. A lot of data the UMii held will be lost, but it should still result in a similar looking Mii.

In a development sense, this is a tremendously clever way to create a wide variety of background characters without bloating the game file size with a collection of 3D models.

For those interested. Alice has opened themselves to Mii Injection commissions. Those interested could have their own personal Miis injected into Breath of the Wild as an NPC. For more information about commissions, reach out to her on Twitter. They also manage a website dedicated to documenting Miis, that can be found here.