‘Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ is Getting an Unofficial VR Mod with Full Motion Controller Support

By
Scott Hayden
-
10

The emulated version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) is getting an unofficial mod this week that will bring full 6DOF PC VR support to the game.

The News

Created by ‘Crementif’, the BetterVR mod for BotW promises to bring fully stereo-rendered, 6DOF VR support to the Cemu emulated version of the game, including full hand and arm support for things like wielding weapons, torches and Bokoblin arms.

Notably, the mod is designed for the Wii U version of BotW, which comes with the usual provisos of requiring a legal copy of the game—no game files are supplied in the mod. Additionally, because it’s using Cemu, the popular Wii U emulator for PC, the VR mod also boasts a large list of mod compatibility.

“While I put a lot of effort into this mod, not everything works. Expect some jank that’ll be resolved over time,” Crementif says. “AMD graphic cards might not be supported (at launch at least). During testing we could not get it to work on an AMD system due to a driver bug.”

Crementif notes that performance will “not be as good as a native VR title due to CPU-heavy emulation,” additionally saying that frame interpolation made it “very playable” on a few test systems quoted below:

  • i9-13900K, RTX 4090, 32 GB RAM, Pimax Crystal Super
  • Ryzen 7600x, RTX 3060 12GB, 32GB RAM, Meta Quest 3

BetterVR is releasing as an open source project on December 30th, and will be freely downloadable from Crementif’s GitHub.

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My Take

At least from test footage, the VR mod for BotW predictably appears to suffer from a few of the same issues seen in emulations of the game on flatscreen, notably jumpy frame rates and inconsistent texture loading. I’m excited, but definitely keeping my expectations in line with whatever weirdness pops up inherent in the emulation process.

Still, by the looks of it, VR interactions in BotW look pretty magical: things like cutting down trees, slicing Bokoblins, and shielding yourself from incoming strikes all seem to be great fits for immersive interactions.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • NL_VR

    i like the comment in the video.
    Modders do what Nintendont

    • kev711

      modders do what all companies dont why its called modding smh

  • Nothing to see here

    Given Nintendo's history, I wouldn't be surprised if their next game system is a VR headset. It seems perfect for it given that the Switch is far behind current generation gaming hardware yet still does a very good job of producing fun to play games. Perhaps they will bring back the Power Glove as well.

    • Gerry

      Given Nintendo's history, I wouldn't be surprised if they shut down this mod within a few weeks ;-)

      • Vincent

        You fucking retards.

        fan stuff like this gets banned because you stupid fucking retarded morons make articles about them which Nintendo sees so then it gets banned. You stupid fucking dickless smooth brained fucktards. Stop making articles outing people like this.

        • Leo

          Is It going to be on the Nintendo switch or only the wifi?

        • Punk0

          Sorry, but if there are morons in this story, it is the people making the mod and announcing it early. If you actually want people to play anything you make that is attached to a Nintendo property, release it the moment you announce it. Then it is out there and no matter how hard Nintendo tries to plug the leaks, it will live on.

          Legally, the modders should have nothing to worry about. But it isn't about the law. Nintendo will spend the money to bring a lawsuit they know they will lose because they know once the people making the mod start shopping lawyers, they will see how much a major lawsuit costs and immediately fold.

        • xyzs

          lol because you think that you can find mods that nintendo won't, because they don't know where to look?

          Who's the tard..?

        • MatBrady

          Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

    • Oxi

      I don't think they see any reason to do something so immature and hit-or-miss design wise. The switch has none of the issues the wii did, and VR would be an order of magnitude worse and would lack the massive third party software library to collect fees from.