Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild NPCs are just Miis, apparently

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild continues to surprise players years after its release. This time, you can actually become an NPC in the game as well.

The Non-Playable Characters (NPC) in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BotW) are just Miis, Nintendo Switch modder @HeyimHeroic confirms.

Clever way to diversify NPCs

Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the most highly-regarded video games of all time. It served as one of the flagship games of the Nintendo Switch console, selling over 20 million copies. It won Game of the Year from The Game Awards 2017, among others accolades from different award races.

The game was a work of wonder, which inspired games such as Genshin Impact and Immortals: Fenyx Rising. Now, the developers are turning out to even much more clever than we thought. Nintendo Switch modder @HeyimHeroic first noticed that the Miis and the NPCs in BotW shared semblance with each other. Upon looking into the game's files, and with the help of a whole Discord server, they determined that the facial features of Miis are being used for the NPCs' appearances, which can be seen in the graphic tweeted by @HeyimHeroic.

Hi, Mii expert here. Turns out, the 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 injects, both screenshot/images of your Mii and mod downloads! pic.twitter.com/8NfVr4zyqA

— i'm alice (@HEYimHeroic) January 4, 2021

Some may see this as a development shortcut or as cheating. However, what the devs did is actually very clever. The whole assortment of Miis created for different games gives Nintendo a large library of Miis to choose from. This gives them a large selection of appearances they can use. Developers were able to diversify the population of Hyrule in BotW while using already-available resources. That's efficiency at its finest.

Getting your own Mii into Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Importing your own Mii into BotW isn't hard to do, but you'll need a modded Switch to make this happen. The process basically involves replacing the Mii profile tied to a particular NPC in the game with the Mii profile you wish to use. You'll then have to find the particular NPC in the game for you to see your Mii (or at least their semblance) in the game.

If that's too hard for you to figure out yourself, you may join the ZeldaMods Discord community and ask for help. They might even do the whole process for you.