Turns Out Zelda: Breath Of The Wild's NPCs Share A Common Bond With The Humble Mii

Finally, a use for these amazing but now pointless characters.

Seriously, it should be a crime not to use them, but for some reason Nintendo kinda just abandoned them in most of their games, excluding Smash Ultimate, Mario Maker 2, and Mario Kart 8.

Miis are criminally underused this gen. I have always loved them and have migrated mine from Wii to 3DS to Wii U and now Switch.

Miis forever!

I had heard about this before (I think it’s mentioned in the “creating a champion” book?), yeah it’s really creative to use the mii system as a base to populate a game.

@Silly_G I love seeing them in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe lobby, some of the designs make me laugh out loud.

This mostly makes me sad. I assume that, since this was originally a Wii U title, there would have possibly been Miiverse integration and you would have also possibly seen your own Miis pop up in game. So sad to see what was scrapped to port this to the switch. Like the more verified removal of the use of the Wii U gamepad as a map. That would have made the game way more immersive.

Nice to know matt have been going placec.

I always thought Mii's had potential for something like this. I didn't realize it actually happened until now, though. Huh...

This has been known in the BotW Modding community for some time now, we've already made new NPCs and whatnot by using the uMii system.

It's a smart developer move, but that's also a super amazing future for Mii-based games that instead is being kept behind the scenes for developers-only use ;w;

This bothers me, just think of all those games that used Mii, we could have got sequels with BOTW ESC characters

@Cheez ”there would have possibly been Miiverse integration and you would have also possibly seen your own Miis pop up in game”

You’re very likely correct! While I adore how the game is, I agree with you that it’s sad the original vision for the Wii U version had to be neutered in favor of the Switch. :<

@Mince I like Mii's wish we could use them more games, but just because Nintendo still is using Mii's in games does not mean that all other decisions are made because of something (the Mii's) that's old. That said Nintendo really needs to bring a powerful console next gen. Atleast on par with the Xbox X or PS4 Pro.

@Mince “Is this why Nintendo games are always strides behind which their games, rather than create a new tech for their next gen etc they use 15 yer old wii tech.”

It’s somewhat unfortunate that the game you’re using to demonstrate Nintendo being “strides behind with their games” is regarded to by many to be the greatest video game ever created; a game that not only rewrote the rule book of its own series, but for open-world games in general.

But yes, the fact that Miis (which themselves were likely heavy inspiration for Microsoft’s Avatar system) are present in the source code demonstrates your point perfectly. I mean, I’m not sure if anyone even noticed until this fact now (hence is being ‘news’), but somehow this alone is enough to drag one of the most celebrated games in history ‘strides behind’ the competition.

I’d really like to assume you were being sarcastic, but I have my doubts.

Cool way of using an already existing and mature interface to generate content. Saves dev time and they didn’t have to license anything from anyone else. Smart business decision all around.

See, I had a feeling they used a randomized Mii Maker and used whatever it barfed up to make their NPC's. Didn't realize how close that was to the truth though.

@Maxz BotW didn't rewrite the open world rule book, its effectively the exact same formula that ubisoft have been following for years just with a zelda skin

This makes me sad that Nintendo doesn't allow Mods in the open world games on the system.

A "mii expert"? Will they play well on a resume?

@Mr-Fuggles777 Oh, the "it has towers you have to climb, so it is exactly like all those Ubisoft games" argument. Haven't heard that one before

Tell me, which Ubisoft open world game let's you:

• Climb almost any part of the game world
• Use physics as an actual gameplay element instead of just for looks
• Play the main story missions in any order and even skip most of them without hindering your progress

Just to name a few things.

One of the first Mii's I ever made was a tall lanky guy with a keyhole for a face, surrounded by 3 triangular dots. I named him 'Neverman' and have carried him over from the original Wii, to the 3DS, and to this day use him as my primary avatar on the Switch.

Neverman has no place inside Breath of the Wild. I'm part of the reason that they don't let you integrate your Miis into this game.

Miitopia 4eva!!!!!!!

For Mii injection, Reggie and Iwata better be on that list!

@countzero pretty much every assassin's creed from 2 onwards lets you climb every part of the gameworld and has been massively expanded upon since Origins.
You could play the "story" in any order because it was almost non existent and consisted of 4 mini dungeons and a boss encounter.
I love BotW, but it definitely reminds me of the first Assassin's Creed, great tech demo but it needs an actual gameplay loop adding in. I will agree the physics were fun and really well implemented.

@countzero I think the main point is that Link can wear a hood in BoTW and you can also wear a hood in Assassin’s Creed.

When you look at it that way it’s a fair point; they are pretty similar. The hood’s even got patterns and stuff on it.

I loved the Mii Maker App on Wii U. I was addicted to it tbh. Must have made close to 50-60 Miis and QR coded another few dozen. I loved how they used to randomnly crop up in games like Wii Fit U as you were running.

This is utter genius. I bet loads of devs are smacking their foreheads right now hahah

@HotGoomba___Rebrand @Silly_G
Miis should have been in Clubhouse Games at the very least. Also missing from the newest Mario and Sonic.

i figured as much. the glasses on some of the NPC's gave it away for me.

@Mr-Fuggles777
"You could play the "story" in any order because it was almost non existent and consisted of 4 mini dungeons and a boss encounter."

I agree that the story was underdeveloped compared to other Zelda games. But it was at least a little bit more involved than that. It also had some great quest design.

I'm playing Cyberpunk at the moment and all I do in the open world is select a quest marker and then follow the yellow line on the mini map 90% of the time.

BotW on the other hand had several quest were you have to actually search the map for something. The prime example for me is the Master Sword. Nobody gave me a quest to look for it. I just talked to random NPCs who would say stuff like "I am searching for this legendary artifact but haven't found out were it is, yet" or "I heard there is an enchanted forest in the north" and piece together were to go from those clues. Another example are the hints for finding all the memories.

@countzero my biggest issue is that most of the side quests felt empty due to the fragility of the weapon rewards, even the Master Sword yielded little reward because its already underpowered by the time you get it and still "breaks" (ok you can still use it after the recharge but its stupid that the Sword of Evils Bane - the end game sword, effectively runs out of batteries).

BotW is an amazing sandbox, I'm hoping 2 does what Ezio did to the Assassins creed franchise and actually adds the game to the empty framework creating something exceptional.

@Mr-Fuggles777 It definitely feels like they spent so much time on creating all the systems and the world that they were a little short on content in the end.

My hope is that part two will have a similar open world (I wouldn't even mind if they just reuse the exact same map) but with traditional Zelda dungeons.