Nintendo Switch Emulation: Ryujinx is gone
It’s almost a surprise that it lasted that long after Nintendo killed Yuzu. But it appears Ryujinx, the popular Nintendo Switch emulator, has now ceased development, following pressure from Nintendo’s legal arm.
Coincidentally, Nintendo are also suing Palworld’s creators, pocketpair.
Ryujinx ceases development
Ryujinx was, along with Yuzu, one of the two impressively good Nintendo Switch emulators out there. Ryujinx did not only emulate the Nintendo console very well, it added Quality of Life features, impressive Network and cross-play functionality, as well as terrific rendering improvements to Nintendo Switch games. Anyone playing on one of these two emulators will tell you that these actually elevate the Nintendo Switch gameplay.
But if you’re trying to access Ryujinx’s official website or their github, you’ll now see either a 404 or an empty page.
In a short message on the tool’s official discord, one of the developers of Ryujinx (riperiperi) announced that the emulator has ceased development, effective immediately. They had this to say:
Yesterday, gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he’s in control of. While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it’s safe to say what the outcome is. Rather than leave you with only panic and speculation, I decided to write this short message to give some closure.
These words are my own. I don’t want to speak for anyone else here, so just remember that while reading.
Thank you to @everyone who has contributed code, documentation or issue reports to the project. Thank you all for following us throughout the development. I was able to learn a lot of really neat things about games that I love, enjoy them with renewed qualities and in unique circumstances, and I’m sure you all have experiences that are similarly special. I’m extending my own massive thanks to our moderation team, who have been here through some rough circumstances and always found ways to make light of it.
Nintendo Switch emulation – What’s next
I really want to appreciate Nintendo for the great games that they produce, but they make it really difficult when they go after every single fan project. Emulators are of course a different beast, but since they are easily (sometimes mistakenly) conflated with piracy, they are a particularly easy target for lawyers. There’s no question that given infinite money, someone could defeat Nintendo in court regarding the legality of an emulator such as Ryujinx, but, understandably, the devs don’t have that kind of money.
In the case of Yuzu, an actual lawsuit happened, with Nintendo’s lawyers documenting extensively how Yuzu’s developers were promoting piracy. The fact that Yuzu accepted payments through a patreon program was also a damning factor. 
It was believed for some time that Ryujinx was “cleaner” on most of these aspects, but that apparently didn’t stop Nintendo from threatening the developers.
I’m sure that we’ll see forks of the project pop here and there, but it’s very likely that they will not go very far before being either shut down or abandoned. Of course, the latest binaries of Ryujinx are easy to find and the tool still runs most of the Switch’s library very well, but it’s sad to see the development getting interrupted this way.
It’s possible that other emulators are being developed under wraps, but clearly a striving community is a huge contributor to the success of an emulator, and Nintendo are making damn sure that such a community can’t grow again.
It was great while it lasted, thanks to all the developers who worked on Ruyjinx!
