RyujiNX Nintendo Switch Emulator Is Already Booting Licensed Games

It looks like the team that developed popular emulators for Nintendo's Wii U (CEMU) and 3DS (Citra) game consoles, has some competition with regards to the Nintendo Switch. A new emulator for the hybrid console called RyujiNX has emerged, and it is not the same one as the experimental emulator (Yuzu) that was already known to be in development. Let the games begin, in a matter of speaking.

Other than being a new contender, what makes RyujiNX stand out is that it is the first to have booted a handful of commercial games on the Switch. That is a huge step towards the ultimate end goal of actually being able to play games, not just boot them—at present, games are not actually playable through RyujiNX. This is seen in a couple of YouTube videos showcasing Cave Story and Puyo Puyo Tetris. Here's a look:



You can see that Cave Story loads just fine, and according to the emulator's developer, "works almost flawlessly except for the fact that it's slow and HID doesn't work with official games." It's also worth noting that the video has been sped up "because I'm pretty sure you don't want to see 10 mins of lag."


Things are a little different in Puyo Puyo Tetris. The game boots up, just like Cave Story, but then freezes after the Tetris splash screen fades to white. So obviously there is a lot more work to be done. However, just getting the games to boot is a big deal.

RyujiNX is programmed in C#, whereas most emulators are created with C++ or C. The developer states that the goal is to "offer good performance, a friendly interface, and consistent builds." There are no stable builds at the moment, as it is still very much in the experimental phase.

It should also be noted that Nintendo is very much against these sort of things. Nintendo has an entire section on its website dedicated to explaining why it is not in favor of mod chips, emulators, ROMs, and so forth.