This guide is up to date as of January 1, 2022.
Prerequisites:
-64-bit PC
-Wii U console
-Physical or Digital copy of BOTW for Wii U
If your PC can't run Cemu, skip to this section, and follow the Wii U console instructions.
Download Cemu, click Download community graphics packs on the first screen, then press Next and hit Configure input to start controller setup.
For this guide, I'll be using a Pro Controller, since it works the best, with the simplest setup. PS4 controllers can be used with DS4Windows to get full motion control support. Dual JoyCons should work fine when used through BetterJoy. Other controllers (Wired or wireless XBOX controllers, other USB gamepads) generally work fine but don't support motion controls. If you use one of these, you can right click and drag to use motion controls in Cemu with a mouse.
Connect your controller to your PC with a wire or Bluetooth. On Switch controllers, this is done by holding down the sync buttons until the lights come on, then pairing with the controller in your Bluetooth settings.
Go to Options > Input settings. Set the emulated controller to the Wii U GamePad. For Pro Controllers (and probably dual JoyCons), set the controller API to SDL. Otherwise, set it to XInput. Select the Pro Controller in the list (SDL), or the first one that appears (Xinput). Now click on the box for the A button, and press the corresponding buttons on your controllers to bind buttons. Click in the <profile name> box, enter a controller profile name, then hit Create and close the input configuration.
Motion controls on Pro Controllers (and probably dual JoyCons) should just work out of the box. For DS4Windows or BetterJoy, hover over Options > GamePad motion source > DSU1, then set it to By Slot.Note: You may need to turn on the motion server in BetterJoy/DS4Windows to enable motion control.
Depending on if you have a physical or digital copy of BOTW, this install process will be a bit different. If you have a physical copy, you'll need to follow the regular Cemu dumping guide, then install them as seen in the game installation guide.
If you bought BOTW on the eShop, follow Cemu's online play guide to get Cemu connected to Nintendo's official servers. Once this is done, go to Tools > Download Manager. Hit the connect button next to your account. After a little bit, you should see a list of every Wii U game you own on that account. You can download any of them by right clicking and pressing download. Download the BOTW base game, then the update, then the DLC.
If for whatever reason you can't download your digital copy through Cemu, fall back to following the dumping guide, as you would a physical copy.
Double-click Breath of the Wild to run it. As soon as Link wakes up, save and return to the title screen (Performance will still be bad at this stage, don't be discouraged!). In the bottom right, it should say Ver. 1.5.0, and DLC Ver. 3.0. If it does, that means that all of the game files have been correctly installed!
Go into the graphics settings (Options > General settings > Graphics), and tick the Async shader compile box. This will dramatically decrease stuttering, especially when first starting the game.In the graphics packs menu (Options > Graphics packs), there will be 3 dropdown menus, and 2 options labelled Enhancements and Graphics. For each option, you can click on the name to change its settings on the right side of the window, and click the box to enable/disable it. Enable the Graphics option, then change the settings in it to your liking. Now, expand the Mods dropdown. The most important option here is FPS++. After playing for a year, I've never once needed to disable this. It gives a massive performance boost, and lets you play the game mostly without issue at up to 60 FPS. The game can be run at higher framerates, but ragdoll physics get weirder as you go higher, and enemies will completely stop being launched if you're at a perfectly stable 60 FPS. (There's a fix for this coming, but it's not out yet).
Play for a bit, and see how it performs. During the first few minutes, there'll be some pop-in and/or lag, which will become far less common as you play the game.
Run this batch script, and select option 1. Once installed, you can run BCML with the shortcut generated by the script, or by running bcml in a command prompt. (NOT the python console)
If for whatever reason the script doesn't work for you, click this dropdown to see manual installation instructions.
Manual BCML Install
BCML requires Python 3.8.10or 3.7.9, and the x64 Visual C++ redistributable. When you open the Python installer, there will be a Add Python to PATH checkbox. You MUST check this box, or else BCML can't be installed.
Now install the x64 Visual C++ redistributable (no special steps are needed).
Open a command prompt anywhere (if you don't know how, just type cmd into Windows Search). Run pip install bcml (in the normal cmd prompt, NOT the python console). If you run it in the python console, it will give you a syntax error. If it says that pip is not a recognized command, this usually means you didn't add Python to PATH, so go back and re-install it. You should see a bunch of progress bars, and then a success message. If it throws lots of errors, make sure you don't have Python 3.9. Now run pip install cefpython3, and run bcml to start BCML.
Before I go over the final steps in BCML setup, it's a good time to cover some common misconceptions about BCML. BCML isn't actually loading Second Wind into the game, it's creating a pack of mods then sending them to Cemu/SDCafiine to load. This means that you can close BCML as long as it's not in the middle of remerging or changing your mod list in any way. In order to merge multiple mods, it uses the game files you got from your console and edits copies of them as dictated by a mod. This does NOT edit your original game files, you can uninstall mods whenever you want.
To install Second Wind, BCML needs the filepaths for BOTW's base game, update, and DLC folders. If you installed BOTW normally like it says earlier in this guide, you can use these filepaths:
Cemu folder: The folder that contains Cemu.exe
Base: [Cemu folder]\mlc01\usr\title\00050000\101c9400\content
Update: [Cemu folder]\mlc01\usr\title\0005000e\101c9400\content
DLC: [Cemu folder]\mlc01\usr\title\0005000c\101c9400\content\0010
Note: If you have a EU or Japanese copy, change 101c9400 to 101c9500 or 101c9300, respectively. Second Wind works with any game region, as long as you set the language setting correctly.
At this point, your filepaths should look something like this:
Now just set the language to whatever language your game will be in, and BCML's setup should be complete! (This step is VERY important. If you set the language wrong, none of Second Wind's items/quests will have text, and they'll just be empty boxes). The mod's text is all in English, but works fine when using other languages (e.g. your game is in French, but Second Wind's text will still be English). Translations are planned, but not until all the text is final.
Note: If you don't see a BCML graphics pack, check to see if the launch game button (the triforce) works (to make sure your Cemu path is correct). Now close Cemu and BCML, press the Remerge button in BCML (looks like a reload button), and re-open Cemu. This will fix the issue in almost all cases. Since you're using Cemu, you can skip past the Wii U section.
Run this batch script, and select option 1. Once installed, you can run BCML with the shortcut generated by the script, or by running bcml in a command prompt. (NOT the python console)
If for whatever reason the script doesn't work for you, click this dropdown to see manual installation instructions.
Manual BCML Install
BCML requires Python 3.8.10or 3.7.9, and the x64 Visual C++ redistributable. When you open the Python installer, there will be a Add Python to PATH checkbox. You MUST check this box, or else BCML can't be installed.
Now install the x64 Visual C++ redistributable (no special steps are needed).
Open a command prompt anywhere (if you don't know how, just type cmd into Windows Search). Run pip install bcml (in the normal cmd prompt, NOT the python console). If you run it in the python console, it will give you a syntax error. If it says that pip is not a recognized command, this usually means you didn't add Python to PATH, so go back and re-install it. You should see a bunch of progress bars, and then a success message. If it throws lots of errors, make sure you don't have Python 3.9.
Wii U Console Installation
Follow Cemu's dumping guide to dump your Wii U copy from the console. It was written with Cemu in mind, but it still works perfectly for modding on console. Once Dumpling is done, copy the Dumpling folder from your SD card to your PC.
Note: In order to merge multiple mods, BCML uses the game files you got from your console and edits copies of them as dictated by a mod.This does NOT edit your original game files, you can uninstall mods whenever you want.
-Since you're not using Cemu, check the Use BCML without a Cemu installation box. Next, BCML needs the filepaths for BOTW's base game, update, and DLC folders. Your filepaths should look something like this:
Make sure to set BCML's language to the language your game is in. If you don't do this, no modded items or quests will have any text at all.BCML is now set up!
Setting up WUPS SDCafiine
SDCafiine is a Wii U homebrew program that will load modded game files from your SD card. The classic version has a history of serious stability problems, as the program eventually unloads from memory, and game files begin to revert to their unmodded state. An alternative version designed for the Wii U Plugin System (WUPS) is much more stable and does not usually unload, so we'll be using that one.
Download the latest nightly release of the Wii U Plugin Loader and SDCafiine from here and here respectively. Extract both into the root of your SD card.
Create a new folder in the root of your SD Card, named sdcafiine.
Within that folder, create a new folder with the name of your game's Title ID. This varies based on your region.
Japan: 00050000101C9300 US: 00050000101C9400 EU: 00050000101C9500Click the export button in BCML (next to the red Uninstall all mods button), and select a location to save the zip file.Within that TitleID folder, create a BCML folder, then extract everything in the zip into it.
To enable mods:
Run the Wii U Plugin Loader option from the Homebrew Launcher, then tick the SDCafiine plugin on and press + to Apply Patches. Go back to theWii U home menu, and launch BOTW. The mods should be loaded automatically.
Now that you're all set up with BCML, download and install the Second Wind BNP file from this page. (Install the BNPs by pressing the + in the bottom right of BCML, then pressing Browse and selecting the 2 BNPs you downloaded)
Blood Moons
You may get frequent "panic moons" (Blood Moons that come suddenly, and ignore the time of day) or crashing while using Second Wind, especially near large modded structures. Long story short, the current tools to generate collisions are imperfect, and end up taking much more memory than vanilla files. The game has very limited memory, so whenever it runs critically low, it will trigger a blood moon to try to recover.
In this case, the blood moon doesn't actually help, and so the game will sometimes just continuously trigger them. If you're on Cemu, you can alleviate it slightly by enabling the Extended Memory graphics pack in the Mods section. If you're on console, there's basically nothing you can do about it.
Note: Cemu users can also install this BNP and enable the No Panic Moons graphics pack, although that has a chance of causing crashes.
Issues in Shrines
If you run into issues with shrine puzzles (e.g. planks not moving in flowing water), try switching FPS++ to 30 FPS mode, and disabling the Draw Distance graphics pack. If you're getting full-on crashes or softlocks when entering a shrine, try disabling player or animation mods like Zelda's Ballad, Linkle, and Girly Animations. These mods can cause issues with custom physics, but the exact cause is unknown.
Mod Compatability
Some mods conflict with Second Wind, and you can find a list of common conflicts on this wiki page.
FAQ
Q: Is this available for Switch?
A: Yes!
Q: Is this available in my language?
A: No, but translations are planned for the same time as Switch porting. You can still use the mod in any game language, but the text for Second Wind's items will remain in English.
Q: What happens to my modded items/quests if I uninstall the mod?
A: The BOTW engine will remove anything it doesn't recognize the next time you save. If you uninstall and re-install, you can just load any save that you made while the mod was installed.
Q: I don't have any modded text! What went wrong?
A: Go into BCML, make sure the language setting matches your game, then hit save and press the Remerge button.
If you still have questions, check the #faq channel on the Second Wind discord or ask us directly.
All mods for BOTW are posted on Gamebanana. Any mods in the .bnp(or .zip) format will have an option for 1-Click Install. When you click it, it'll download the mod right into BCML and then bring up a prompt to install it. The only problem is that there's no download progress bar, and some mods can be massive. There's also an integrated Gamebanana tab in BCML, although it can be slow. Personally, I'd recommend using the download button and saving the mod file for anything above about 10-15MB. Assuming everything is set up correctly, it should be applied the next time you boot up the game. If you need any more info, refer to the BCML help.
