Anyone familiar with the Nintendo Wii craze of 2006 may remember the incredible popularity of Miis, Nintendo's neat customizable avatars. Miis undoubtedly saw the most attention in the Wii Sports titles, but gradually became Nintendo mainstays in the following years, appearing as playable characters in Mario Kart Wii, making their way over to the 3DS in 2011, and even receiving one of gaming's greatest honors by being added as playable fighters in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U in 2014.
While Nintendo's trademark player avatars eventually made their way over to the Switch, the system has not utilized them all that much aside from allowing them to appear in select games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as act as profile icons. However, with the recent announcement of Miitopia for Switch, it seems that Mii's may be making a comeback, and now a new discovery regarding "Special Miis" has been found in the console's Software Development Kit.
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Over on Twitter, modder and self-proclaimed Mii expert HEYimHeroic posted a string of tweets revealing that the Switch's SDK allows for Special Miis to be stored in the system. While the modder notes that there are currently no official Special Miis created by Nintendo for the Switch, the avatars can be modded into the system, but even then their functionalities are incredibly limited.
By far, the most notable change to Special Miis compared to regular Miis is that they have gold pants. Otherwise, Special Miis cannot be edited by players or used as player icons, they can't be used in any first-party Nintendo games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Super Mario Maker 2, and they cannot be set as the owner of an amiibo. Additionally, it seems that in the event that a Special Mii makes its way into a game, there is code made specifically to revert its appearance to that of a default Mii. A dedicated message has also been programmed to appear should players attempt to delete a Special Mii, indicating that this feature may be intentionally kept in the Switch's SDK.
On the Nintendo 3DS, players could encounter Special Miis via StreetPass or SpotPass, which allowed them to obtain official Miis created in the image of characters from games, or even Nintendo employees, such as former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. Now, with Miitopia making its way to the Switch this May, fans hope to see a return of the 3DS' StreetPass and SpotPass sometime soon, perhaps allowing them to add Special Miis to their game.
Aside from Miitopia, Miis have also made a noticeable comeback in the story mode for the upcoming Mario Golf: Super Rush, and just at the start of 2021, Nintendo fans discovered that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild uses a type of "deluxe Miis" to create its NPCs. At the moment, it certainly seems like Miis could experience a sort of revival, but only time will tell for sure.