We miss Skyloft. Out of all the towns Link’s ever lived in, it sure was the floatiest. Breath of the Wild modder Waikuteru – who you may remember from the revamp of Link’s House, turning it from “rubbish shack” into “actually functional domicile”, or their discovery of an unused shrine – has just had a breakthrough, and it involves everyone’s favourite motion-based Zelda game.
In a new video, Waikuteru shows off how modders can actually edit the overworld in Breath of the Wild, which could mean… anything, really. Make a DOOM level in Hyrule. Build a café, and invite all your favourite horses. Create a twenty-foot statue of Link picking his nose. The possibilities are endless!
To demonstrate this newfound power, Waikuteru took Skyloft, the starting town of Skyward Sword, and dropped it into the game. And it looks really good, folks.
Waikuteru added some sweet little touches to Skyloft, too, like the Korok who runs a mushroom shop in the Bazaar, or the massive stone pillar that boots Link back to the ground, but what’s best of all is seeing the watercolour world of Skyward Sword with the gorgeous lighting of Breath of the Wild.
As for where exactly Skyloft is located, that takes a bit more explaining.
“There are 4 accessible worlds in Breath of the Wild,” says Waikuteru in the video. First, there’s the MainField, which is the normal overworld. Then, there’s the CDungeon, which is where all the shrines are. There’s the MainFieldDungeon, which is where the Divine Beasts and Final Trial take place. Lastly, there’s the AocField, which is a new world that was added with the Master Trial DLC.
The MainField has 80 map sections, all of which are in use. The AocField also has 80, but uses only 5, leaving the other 75 empty and free to use. Skyloft was placed in one of those, which also means that everything around it is just a big, blank plane of grass. A plains plane, if you will.
Waikuteru even shows off the DLC areas by running and gliding to them, demonstrating the musical and lighting changes that take place when he hits the boundary. There’s even a few weird, unused, barely-developed areas that consist of a small, grassy circle surrounded by water. It’s not clear what these were destined to be, but Waikuteru theorises that they were perhaps meant to be supply rooms.
The video is definitely worth a watch for anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes of game development, as well as what Nintendo games look like without their clothes on. What’s more, the ability to add new areas into Breath of the Wild could result in some really cool mods coming our way soon.
Does this video make you want a Switch remake of Skyward Sword even more? Drop your pleas to Nintendo in the comments.