Putting Mii’s into BOTW, Modders Unlock Hidden Secrets

Breath of the Wild uses Mii face creator

A self-professed Mii expert just discovered that Nintendo used a version of the Mii toolset to make NPCs for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild!

Miis were introduced with the Wii in 2006, and allowed gamers to create avatars for user accounts. They were used in a bunch of Wii games, including Super Smash Bros and now you can inject them into Breath of the Wild too.

Hey, listen: @HEYimHeroic made the discovery, and offers to put your Mii in Hyrule for you. How? “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.”

Who directed Nier: Automata?

a) Kotaro Uchikoshi
b) Yoko Taro
c) Kazutaka Kodaka
d) Hidetaka Suehiro

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today's issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Wonder what could have been, PlayStation

Wonder Project J2 64 was a life simulator for Nintendo, and it almost made it to PlayStation as well. In the end, that version was cancelled – but an iOS version was released in 2010.

The PlayStation version was supposed to feature animated sequences that couldn’t be included in the Nintendo 64 version since the game had to fit on a cartridge. The game was scheduled to release in late 1997, but never made it to market.

Join our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today's fact.

Werewolf roleplay and shadowy puzzles

Looks like the games industry is also slow to get back on its feet after the holidays, making for slim pickings this week. The only two notable titles are Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest, a visual novel based on World of Darkness, and Iris.Fall a puzzle adventure based around light and shadows.

Thursday – January 07th

• Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest for Switch

Friday – January 08th

• Iris.Fall for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch

New secrets discovered in old games

It’s been nearly 25 years since Street Fighter Alpha 2 launched, and a programmer inspecting the game code just found out how to unlock Shin Akuma in the SNES version.

Similarly, another programmer discovered that you can skip straight to the last ending in Nier: Automata right after you defeat the game's first boss. “It's not a glitch, it's an actual cheat code hard-coded into the engine,” according to Lance McDonald. You need to perform an odd little ritual to make it happen.

KAJ is the champion: Unlocking Shin Akuma is hardly straightforward either. First you need to beat the arcade mode and earn the highest score, then enter the initials KAJ. Then you need to hold down the L, X, Y and start buttons on the second controller as you select versus mode with the first controller. Then either player can select Shin Akuma while holding down the start button.

Debug secrets: Both of these weird secrets were probably intended as shortcuts for developers during testing, since no official game guides or other sources have revealed them.

Frozen Peak season for Clash Royale

Frozen Peak is the nineteenth season for Clash Royale and will last for about a month. This time the spotlight is on the Ice Wizard card and there will be two new battle pass emotes: Dancer and Popcorn. You can also unlock an icy tower skin by reaching level 10. Take a look at what else is new in the teaser

Ranked play returns to Call of Duty

Rumour says ranked mode is returning for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and will probably appear sometime during the second season or at the start of the third. Ranked playlists were notably absent from Modern Warfare, and design director David Vonderhaar hinted that ranked play could return in October last year.

• This month's PlayStation Plus games have been announced and includes Maneater, Greedfall and Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Double Fine posts a festive Psychonauts 2 update to assure fans that the project is “doing well” and will launch this year
• Japanese retailer claims PlayStation 4 has been discontinued and that most of the different SKUs will not be restocked since production has ended
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 teaser with in-game footage shows off next-gen Unreal-powered first-person survival action
• Most DSi games vanish from the Nintendo 3DS eShop, 250 titles have disappeared in North America while the European store remains unaffected for now

Who directed Nier: Automata?

ANSWER: Yoko Taro!

Nier: Automata was a bit of a surprise hit in 2017, and blew a lot of minds with its mix of short skirts, stylish combat and existentialism. It’s pretty much par for the course when you’re dealing with a Yoko Taro game, though: His Drakengard series as well as the first Nier also feature rather unusual storytelling.

One of his signature themes is videogames’ obsession with violence, and both Nier and Drakengard have protagonists with a peculiar taste for killing. If you don’t mind a bit of surrealism and appreciate a stylish anime presentation, you should definitely check out Yoko Taro’s work. Just don’t be surprised when it starts going places you could never have imagined.

Today's issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey.