The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildsees Link venture across the desolated Kingdom of Hyrule as he seeks to tame the corrupted Divine Beasts and defeat Calamity Ganon. As Link explores, one quest in the Gerudo Wasteland takes him to the Yiga Clan, a band of marauders hell-bent on killing Link and returning the world to chaos. As the player explores the world ofBreath of the Wild, they can come across seemingly innocent travelers seeking refuge from the destruction, though they will quickly reveal themselves to be members of this elusive Clan.
In certain locations aroundBreath of the Wild’s open world, these travelers will appear and, after Link engages them in conversation, they will break their disguise and attack him. After killing them, they will drop some rupees and a banana, hinting at the key to distracting the fiends when Link later breaks into their compound. What players may not recognize about these individuals, however, is that they take on forms that are eerily familiar.
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As discovered by user justlookingfordragon on the r/Breath_of_the_Wild subreddit, each traveler takes the form of a real, named NPC somewhere in the game world. By approaching the traveler who spawns atthe Hebra Trailhead Lodge, the user found that each of the different disguises they take are “1:1 clones” of named characters. In the post, justlookingfordragons details their process and lists each of the characters that the Yiga assume the forms of.
The user goes further, explaining that the unique Yiga followers who impersonate crying women are exclusively modeled after the wandering female NPCs. They also wonder at the two disguised Yiga seen in Urbosa’s cutscene fromThe Champions’ Ballad DLC, describing them as potentially “unique” as they don’t match any known wandering NPCs.
User pe5e expands on this post, explaining that all the disguises thatYiga Clan memberstake come from a pool of traveling NPCs, but only the Hylian characters, as they never assume the forms of Zora, Gerudo, and Gorons. This means that 35 of the 43 wandering characters are “alliable as possible Yiga Footsoldier disguises.”
Reddit users rejoiced at the revelation, expressing relief that their paranoia of running into disguised Yigas is finally diminished. They also praise the dedication of the Reddit user who poured so much time and effort into this discovery, as well as the developers for their attention to such small details which fans can hope to see in theBreath of the Wildsequel, coming in 2023.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildis currently exclusive to Nintendo Switch and Wii U.
