In 2021, YouTuber PointCrow offered a $10,000 reward for anybody who could create and send him a multiplayer mod for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Now, just over a month before the launch of Tears of the Kingdom, fans can finally use the mod that came out of this deal to explore Hyrule with friends.
On April 4, PointCrow released his multiplayer mod for Breath of the Wild. The mod was created by AlexMangue and Sweet, who claimed the $10,000 reward last July and then began working alongside PointCrow to finish the mod and make it publicly available.
PointCrow had previously shown off the mod in multiple videos, using it to play games like hide and seek, though it appears that a host of new features have been added since his last video showing off the mod. Since the mod’s launch, quite a few fans have experimented with it.
“I’ve been playing with this over the week,” Resetera user Moara commented in a thread. “Came out right as I started playing BOTW for the first time so it was pretty good timing lol. Pretty impressed with how well it works. You can set it to have shrine progress and koroks sync up. Even quest sync is an option. You can leave the server up and quit out of the game at any time and none of the progress gets interrupted for the other player.”
The mod is available on the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild.
Nintendo isn’t as supportive
Nintendo, however, hasn’t been as supportive of PointCrow’s mod. According to Tweets by PointCrow, the company blocked his multiplayer mod-related YouTube videos due to copyright claims. After appealing these claims, he was able to get some of these videos reposted, albeit unmonetized. At the time of this article, it appears that some of these videos have been taken down again.
Update: I have appealed these claims. As of now, they are still visible for you to watch — however, they are not monetized. Hopefully Nintendo releases these claims, as I significantly transform their work and my videos are under fair use.
— eric pointcrow (@PointCrow) April 7, 2023
We gave Breath of the Wild a 10 in our review, calling it “a masterclass in open-world design.” Of course, players other than PointCrow have crafted quite a few mods for the game, including a split-screen multiplayer mod, a mod that essentially turns the game into NieR: Automata, and mods that replace Link with everyone from Waluigi to Minecraft’s Steve.
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
